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Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

CONTEMPORARY STYLE

Used to refer to a time rather than an aesthetic, Contemporary art generally describes pieces created after 1970 or being made by living artists anywhere in the world. This immediacy means it encompasses art responding to the present moment through diverse subjects, media and themes. Contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, performance, digital art, video and more frequently includes work that is attempting to reshape current ideas about what art can be, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of candy to memorialize a lover he lost to AIDS-related complications to Jenny Holzer’s ongoing “Truisms,” a Conceptual series that sees provocative messages printed on billboards, T-shirts, benches and other public places that exist outside of formal exhibitions and the conventional “white cube” of galleries.

Contemporary art has been pushing the boundaries of creative expression for years. Its disruption of the traditional concepts of art are often aiming to engage viewers in complex questions about identity, society and culture. In the latter part of the 20th century, contemporary movements included Land art, in which artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer create large-scale, site-specific sculptures, installations and other works in soil and bodies of water; Sound art, with artists such as Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz centering art on sonic experiences; and New Media art, in which mass media and digital culture inform the work of artists such as Nam June Paik and Rafaël Rozendaal.

The first decades of the 21st century have seen the growth of Contemporary African art, the revival of figurative painting, the emergence of street art and the rise of NFTs, unique digital artworks that are powered by blockchain technology.

Major Contemporary artists practicing now include Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Kara Walker.

Find a collection of Contemporary prints, photography, paintings, sculptures and other art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Contemporary
Color:  Blue
Little bas gun Caroline Veith Contemporary art drawing blue figurative art
Located in Paris, FR
Mixed media on tracing paper Hand-signed and dated lower right
Category

2010s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink, Acrylic

Hullabaloo Caroline Veith Contemporary drawing art vivid colours red
Located in Paris, FR
Acrylic paint and ink on tracing paper Hand-signed and dated lower left
Category

2010s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Acrylic

Spring Training - Watercolor of Baseball Greats Jackie Robinson & Mickey Mantel
Located in Chicago, IL
Jackie Roosevelt Robinson was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947 Hall of Fame Induction 1962. Mickey Charles Mantle, nicknamed The Commerce Comet and The Mick, was an American professional baseball player. Mantle played his entire Major League Baseball career with the New York Yankees as a center fielder, right fielder, and first baseman. Hall of Fame Induction 1974. This painting shows Dodgers first baseman Jackie Robinson and Yankees base-runner Mickey Mantle...
Category

2010s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Acrylic, Paper, Watercolor

For Nicolai / Head Study No. 88
Located in Burlingame, CA
For Nicolai / Head Study No. 88 , drawing / painting featuring the head portrait of a young woman. in blue. The work is created with mixed media on paper, including stabilo pencil, g...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Gouache, Charcoal, Mixed Media, Watercolor, Color Pencil

Electric Moss Venus
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Electric Moss Venus, 2020, watercolor, mirror paint, ink, and salt on Arches paper. Venus of Willendorf, green, blue, silver.
Category

2010s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Paper, Acrylic, Watercolor

Deep Blue Venus
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Deep Blue Venus, 2020, watercolor, ink, mirror paint, and salt on Arches paper. Venus of Willendorf, fertility goddess, blue, cobalt blue, and whit...
Category

2010s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor, Ink

BB #4 #5
Located in Brecon, Powys
From the Artist Bridget Bardot series Ink + thread hand and machine stitched on paper
Category

2010s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Thread, Paper, Ink

"The Wonder of Human Hand, " Pastel Portrait on Paper signed by Reginald K. Gee
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"The Wonder of Human Hand" is an original pastel drawing on paper by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower right. This piece features a blue-skinned man looking at his o...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel

"Skeletype Grape, " Acrylic & Pastel on Grocery Bag signed by Reginald K. Gee
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Skeletype Grape" is an original acrylic painting and pastel on a grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower left. This artwork features an abstract portrait o...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Found Objects, Pastel, Acrylic

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"Four Years of Frustration, Delays & Missed Appointments (The Count)" (2020) by street artist City Kitty 18.25 x 12.25 x .75" Ink, acrylic and color pencil on MTA poster...
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Superb Stylish Vintage Fashion Design Painting Artist Stamped
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Very stylish, unique and original 1950's fashion design, no doubt of Parisian origin. The painting, executed in gouache and pencil, is stamped verso by its designer Claude Monnat. ...
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Set of 9 Figure Illustrations Egyptian Classical Characters Listed American
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'Woman With Yellow Bird' Original Drawing Acrylic And Ink On Paper
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Inspired by the theatre world, Devie had retained her own unique drawing strokes. Her works reflect an approachable other-worldliness. She paints a story to be told and answered. Th...
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Rare Modernist Hungarian Rabbi Pastel Drawing Gouache Painting Judaica Art Deco
Located in Surfside, FL
Rabbi in the synagogue at prayer wearing tallit and tefillin. Hugó Scheiber (born 29 September 1873 in Budapest – died there 7 March 1950) was a Hungarian modernist painter. Hugo Scheiber was brought from Budapest to Vienna at the age of eight where his father worked as a sign painter for the Prater Theater. At fifteen, he returned with his family to Budapest and began working during the day to help support them and attending painting classes at the School of Design in the evening, where Henrik Papp was one of his teachers. He completed his studies in 1900. His work was at first in a post-Impressionistic style but from 1910 onward showed his increasing interest in German Expressionism and Futurism. This made it of little interest to the conservative Hungarian art establishment. However, in 1915 he met the great Italian avant-gardist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and the two painters became close friends. Marinetti invited him to join the Futurist Movement. The uniquely modernist style that he developed was, however, closer to German Expressionism than to Futurism and eventually drifted toward an international art deco manner similar to Erté's. In 1919, he and his friend Béla Kádar held an exhibition at the Hevesy Salon in Vienna. It was a great success and at last caused the Budapest Art Museum to acquire some of Scheiber's drawings. Encouraged, Scheiber came back to live in Vienna in 1920. A turning point in Scheiber's career came a year later, when Herwarth Walden, founder of Germany's leading avant-garde periodical, Der Sturm, and of the Sturm Gallery in Berlin, became interested in Scheiber's work. Scheiber moved to Berlin in 1922, and his paintings soon appeared regularly in Walden's magazine and elsewhere. Exhibitions of his work followed in London, Rome, La Paz, and New York. Scheiber's move to Germany coincided with a significant exodus of Hungarian artists to Berlin, including Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Sandor Bortnyik. There had been a major split in ideology among the Hungarian avant-garde. The Constructivist and leader of the Hungarian avantgarde, Lajos Kassák (painted by Hugó Scheiber in 1930) believed that art should relate to all the needs of contemporary humankind. Thus he refused to compromise the purity of his style to reflect the demands of either the ruling class or socialists and communists. The other camp believed that an artist should be a figurehead for social and political change. The fall out and factions that resulted from this politicisation resulted in most of the Hungarian avant gardists leaving Vienna for Berlin. Hungarian émigrés made up one of the largest minority groups in the German capital and the influx of their painters had a significant effect on Hungarian and international art. Another turning point of Scheiber's career came in 1926, with the New York exhibition of the Société Anonyme, organized by Katherine Dreier. Scheiber and other important avant garde artists from more than twenty-three countries were represented. In 1933, Scheiber was invited by Marinetti to participate in the great meeting of the Futurists held in Rome in late April 1933, Mostra Nazionale d’Arte Futurista where he was received with great enthusiasm. Gradually, the Hungarian artists began to return home, particularly with the rise of Nazism in Germany. Kádar went back from Berlin in about 1932 and Scheiber followed in 1934. He was then at the peak of his powers and had a special flair in depicting café and cabaret life in vivid colors, sturdily abstracted forms and spontaneous brush strokes. Scheiber depicted cosmopolitan modern life using stylized shapes and expressive colors. His preferred subjects were cabaret and street scenes, jazz musicians, flappers, and a series of self-portraits (usually with a cigar). his principal media being gouache and oil. He was a member of the prestigious New Society of Artists (KUT—Képzőművészek Új Társasága)and seems to have weathered Hungary's post–World War II transition to state-communism without difficulty. He continued to be well regarded, eventually even receiving the posthumous honor of having one of his images used for a Russian Soviet postage stamp (see image above). Hugó Scheiber died in Budapest in 1950. Paintings by Hugó Scheiber form part of permanent museum collections in Budapest (Hungarian National Museum), Pecs (Jannus Pannonius Museum), Vienna, New York, Bern and elsewhere. His work has also been shown in many important exhibitions, including: "The Nell Walden Collection," Kunsthaus Zürich (1945) "Collection of the Société Anonyme," Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut (1950) "Hugó Scheiber: A Commemorative Exhibition," Hungarian National Museum, Budapest (1964) "Ungarische Avantgarde," Galleria del Levante, Munich (1971) "Paris-Berlin 1900-1930," Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1978) "L’Art en Hongrie, 1905-1920," Musée d’Art et l’Industrie, Saint-Etienne (1980) "Ungarische Avantgarde in der Weimarer Republik," Marburg (1986) "Modernizmus," Eresz & Maklary Gallery, Budapest (2006) "Hugó Scheiber & Béla Kádár," Galerie le Minotaure, Paris and Tel Aviv (2007) Hugó Scheiber's paintings continue to be regularly sold at Sotheby's, Christie's, Gillen's Arts (London), Papillon Gallery (Los Angeles) and other auction houses. He was included in the exhibition The Art Of Modern Hungary 1931 and other exhibitions along with Vilmos Novak Aba, Count Julius Batthyany, Pal Bor, Bela Buky, Denes Csanky, Istvan Csok, Bela Czobel, Peter Di Gabor, Bela Ivanyi Grunwald, Baron Ferenc Hatvany, Lipot Herman, Odon Marffy, C. Pal Molnar...
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Early 20th Century Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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Jules-Eugène Lenepveu (1819-1898) Portrait of a man in profile, signed drawing
Located in Paris, FR
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Set of 6 Figure Illustrations Egyptian Classical Characters Listed American
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
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Category

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Materials

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Vogue Magazine, Elegant Fashion Illustration for Adel Simpson
Located in Miami, FL
Vogue USA, Fashion Illustration. Meticulously drawn in a descriptive and yet creative way. Antonio's full mastery of his art is on full display. Signed lower right. The work is arch...
Category

1980s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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Gouache, Watercolor, Pencil

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Located in New York, NY
Linda Stein, Profile Solid 383.062 - Signed Feminist LGBTQ+ Acrylic and Goauche on Paper Drawing Profile Solid 383.062 is from Linda Stein's Profiles series--drawings, collages an...
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1970s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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Located in Soquel, CA
Gorgeous pair of two 1920's watercolor portraits of Gibson girls, one in blue and one in pink, by Charles Hollman (Dutch, 1877-1953). Each portrait renders...
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Previously Available Items
The Big Wave, blue and black work on paper, woman surfing, stripes
Located in New York, NY
Acrylic ink on paper. Paper size: 14.25" x 23.25" Frame size: 22.25" x 31" Charles Buckley lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His current work, entitled “Striation Series,” demonstrat...
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2010s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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Edenic
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This wall-hanging artwork titled "Edenic" is an original artwork by David Heo made of colored pencil, crayon, acrylic gouache, and painted paper cutouts coll...
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21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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Edenic
Edenic
H 12 in W 9 in
Disparate V - 21st Century, Portrait, Male, Seashell, Blue, Red, Figurative Art
Located in Berlin, DE
Disparate V, 2014 Tempera on paper (Signed, Framed) 27 3/5 H × 39 2/5 W in. 70 H x 100 W cm On the subject of his new works the artist stated: “There is not enough orange, yellow an...
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Located in Hudson, NY
The Netherlands (Aerialist): Colored Pencil Drawing & Unique Stamp by Andrea Moreau colored pencil and postage stamp on paper 11 x 11 inches 15 x 15 inches framed $950 framed This c...
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2010s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

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Paper, Found Objects, Color Pencil

BB #4 #4
Located in Brecon, Powys
From the Artist Bridget Bardot series Ink + thread machine stitched on paper
Category

2010s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Thread, Paper, Ink

BB #4 #4
H 27.76 in W 21.46 in
she (blue)
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This is an original graphite drawing with painted gouache background on paper mounted on panel by Jason Andrew Turner measuring 14in x 11in. The piece has a simple wood border frami...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache, Wood Panel, Archival Paper, Graphite

she (mint)
Located in Philadelphia, PA
Original drawing by Jason Andrew Turner measuring 8in x 7in, ready to hang as pictured. Artist Statement // My work is an investigation of the rhythm and lifetime of the portrait....
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

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Romy In Jeans: Contemporary Mixed Media Figurative painting by John Emanuel
Located in Brecon, Powys
John Emanuel embarking on a series of works using new life models. Unusual for a artist who has over the last 40 years only had 3 previous sitters. Now working with Sarah Jane and ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache

Contemporary portrait drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Contemporary portrait drawings and watercolors available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add portrait drawings and watercolors created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, green, orange, purple and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Leo Guida, Manuel Santelices, Howard Tangye, and Simon Goldberg. Frequently made by artists working with Paper, and Ink and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Contemporary portrait drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 1.25 inches across are also available. Prices for portrait drawings and watercolors made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $100 and tops out at $213,000, while the average work sells for $1,172.

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