Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
REALIST STYLE
Realist art attempts to portray its subject matter without artifice. Similar to naturalism, authentic realist paintings and prints see an integration of true-to-life colors, meticulous detail and linear perspectives for accurate portrayals of the world.
Work that involves illusionistic techniques of realism dates back to the classical world, such as the deceptive trompe l’oeil used since ancient Greece. Art like this became especially popular in the 17th century when Dutch artists like Evert Collier painted objects that appeared real enough to touch. Realism as an artistic movement, however, usually refers to 19th-century French realist artists such as Honoré Daumier exploring social and political issues in biting lithographic prints, while the likes of Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet painting people — particularly the working class — with all their imperfections, navigating everyday urban life. This was a response to the dominant academic art tradition that favored grand paintings of myth and history.
By the turn of the 20th century, European artists, such as the Pre-Raphaelites, were experimenting with nearly photographic realism in their work, as seen in the attention to every botanical attribute of the flowers surrounding the drowned Ophelia painted by English artist John Everett Millais.
Although abstraction was the guiding style of 20th-century art, the realism trend in American modern art endured in Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth and other artists’ depictions of the complexities of the human experience. In the late 1960s, Photorealism emerged with artists like Chuck Close and Richard Estes giving their paintings the precision of a frame of film.
Contemporary artists such as Jordan Casteel, LaToya Ruby Frazier and Aliza Nisenbaum are now using the unvarnished realist approach for honest representations of people and their worlds. Alongside traditional mediums, technology such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and immersive installations are helping artists create new sensations of realism in art.
Find authentic realist paintings, sculptures, prints and more art on 1stDibs.
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Style: Realist
African Children Suffer Famine and Despair in Hot Colors - Africa is Bleeding
By Victor Olson
Located in Miami, FL
An intense and powerful study of five undernourished and perhaps starving African children partly superimposed and partly integrated into the silhouette of the African continent...
Category
1970s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Graphite, Watercolor
Portrait Of A Young Girl In A Lilac Dress With A Black Bow. Circa 1860. SIgned.
Located in Firenze, IT
Portrait of a young girl in a lilac dress with a black bow.
Circa 1860.
Signature below right, partially visible.
Size with frame 59cm x 49cm
Size without frame 33cm x 24cm
The portr...
Category
Mid-19th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Chalk, Crayon, Carbon Pencil
Contemporary Surrealism Acrylic Portrait, Christopher Polentz, "Princess II"
Located in San Diego, CA
A 17"x 64" x 3" Magical Realism Acrylic Portrait Painting executed on Wood Panel with Custom Framing by artist Christopher Polentz. A certificate of authenticity will accompany the p...
Category
2010s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Acrylic, Wood Panel
Portrait of a Cornish Fisherman. Historical Social Record of Fishing Industry.
Located in Sutton Poyntz, Dorset
Frederick James McNamara Evans.
English ( b.1859 - d.1929 ).
Portrait of a Cornish Fisherman
Watercolor. Signed.
Image size 10.2 inches x 8.1 inches ( 26cm x 20.5cm ).
Frame size 16...
Category
Early 20th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Watercolor
'Portrait of a Woman', Myanmar Neck Ring, Mill Valley, Mystic Seaport Museum
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower right, 'J. Norall' for John Norall (American, 1920-2024) and painted circa 1993.
Exhibited: Mill Valley Library Gallery, 1993
Born in North Platte, John Norall studied ...
Category
1990s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Watercolor
Portrait. 1966. watercolor on paper, 35.5x30 cm
Located in Riga, LV
Portrait. 1966. watercolor on paper, 35.5x30 cm
Dzidra Ezergaile (1926-2013)
Born in Riga. School years alternate with summer work in the countryside...
Category
1960s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor, Paper
Portrait. Watercolor on paper, 42x37 cm
Located in Riga, LV
Portrait. Watercolor on paper, 42x37 cm
Dzidra Ezergaile (1926-2013)
Born in Riga. School years alternate with summer work in the countryside. In 194...
Category
1960s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor, Paper
Infanta Flower Head with Mountain Body
Located in Burlingame, CA
Chikako Okada’s autobiographical works of art bridge traditional realism with magical realism and surrealism. The artist uniquely addresses questions of the human condition through h...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pencil, Paper, Graphite
Lady in a Feathered Hat, Portrait, Figure, Charcoal Drawing, Austrian
Located in Wiscasset, ME
Irene Hölzer-Weineck was born in Prague in 1888 and later worked as a painter primarily in Vienna. After artistic training with the Czech painter Vojtech Hynais, Hölzer-Weineck studi...
Category
Early 20th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Charcoal
Portrait of a Young Woman - 1930's Art Deco portrait drawing British artist
Located in London, GB
A fine large charcoal and pencil drawing by British listed artist James Stroudley. Executed in 1931, it is a stunning example of a 1930s Art Deco portrait. Very strong and bold, it d...
Category
1930s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Carbon Pencil
Two girls reading a book
Located in Sempach, LU
Just another evening in the artist's studio, when the guests arrived and sat down to look at all kinds of art books. Two girls were so carried away by the book that they no longer no...
Category
2010s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Tempera, Permanent Marker
Mary Adshead - 20th Century British watercolour portrait of Stephen Bone
By Mary Adshead
Located in London, GB
MARY ADSHEAD
(1904-1995)
Portrait of Stephen Bone, the artist’s husband
Pencil and watercolour, squared for transfer
Framed
45 by 32 cm., 17 ¾ by 12 ½ ...
Category
Mid-20th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
KIOWA WOMAN
Located in Tallahassee, FL
Portrait of Kiowa American Indian Tribal Elder.
Part of Artist's Personal Collection.
Category
20th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Sir Dominic Sewell at the St. George's Jousting Tournament in Moscow in 2019
Located in Sempach, LU
In the summer of 2019, Evgeniy Monahov was lucky to make a series of live sketches during the of St. George's Jousting Tournament in Moscow - for several days everyone had the opport...
Category
2010s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Permanent Marker, Tempera
Woman with a Blue Kerchief: watercolor by Irish artist Magrath
Located in Philadelphia, PA
William Magrath
(Irish, 1838-1918)
Woman with a Blue Kerchief
Watercolor on paper, mounted; 18 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches
Signed and dated at upper right: "W Magrath/1876"
Stamped on stret...
Category
1870s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Watercolor
Freedom
Located in Burlingame, CA
Chikako Okada’s autobiographical works of art bridge traditional realism with magical realism and surrealism. The artist uniquely addresses questions of the human condition through h...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pencil, Paper, Graphite
Aquarius
Located in Burlingame, CA
'Aquarius' features the face of a young woman with flowering succulents, thorns and a turbulent sky surrounding her body and is a complex graphite drawing on Kent paper. From Japanes...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pencil, Paper, Graphite
No, I'll not give you my password!
Located in Sempach, LU
Usually viewers try to look over the shoulder to see what the artist is painting, but here Evgeniy Monahov, in a quick sketch portrait, seems to be looking over the shoulder of his m...
Category
2010s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Permanent Marker, Tempera
Scream of an Angel
Located in Sempach, LU
A sketch for a future big painting that Angelina and Evgeniy will make someday - then they will decide what will be more in her beautiful dark eyes - surprise, fright, pleasure.. or ...
Category
2010s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Tempera, Permanent Marker
Love & Peace & Sisterhood
Located in Burlingame, CA
Chikako Okada’s autobiographical works of art bridge traditional realism with magical realism and surrealism. The artist uniquely addresses questions of the human condition through h...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pencil, Paper, Graphite
Growing Pains
Located in Burlingame, CA
Chikako Okada’s autobiographical works of art bridge traditional realism with magical realism and surrealism. The artist uniquely addresses questions of the human condition through her meticulously detailed, and patterned imagery. The work is mesmerizing, rich in symbolism, and reference feminine power, vulnerability, sadness, longing, and desire. Often featuring adolescent girls and boys that are mysteriously posed, the artist leaves the circumstances of her subjects to the viewer's interpretation. Chikako Okada is inspired by the paintings of European masters, Mexico's Frida Kahlo, and the American surrealists.
The drawing is 23 1/4 X 18 1/4 inches. Professionally matted and framed in a museum quality rose gold wood...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pencil, Paper, Graphite
Infanta de la Resistencia
Located in Burlingame, CA
Chikako Okada’s autobiographical works of art bridge traditional realism with magical realism and surrealism. The artist uniquely addresses questions of the human condition through her meticulously detailed, and patterned imagery. The work is mesmerizing, rich in symbolism, and reference feminine power, vulnerability, sadness, longing, and desire. Often featuring adolescent girls and boys that are mysteriously posed, the artist leaves the circumstances of her subjects to the viewer's interpretation. Chikako Okada is inspired by the paintings of European masters, Mexico's Frida Kahlo, and the American surrealists.
The drawing is 16 x 12 inches. Professionally matted and framed in a museum quality rose gold...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Pencil, Graphite
Infante & Infanta Mellizos
Located in Burlingame, CA
Chikako Okada’s autobiographical works of art bridge traditional realism with magical realism and surrealism. The artist uniquely addresses questions of the human condition through h...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pencil, Paper, Graphite
Infanta Primavera, 2019
Located in Burlingame, CA
'Infanta Primavera' features the face of a young woman's head with a flowering cactus in an intricately patterned and a succulent coated body. It is complex graphite drawing on Kent ...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pencil, Paper, Graphite
In my place #2
Located in PARIS, FR
This work is typical of the artist’s pictorial production. The painter, who graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Rome, has a traditional approach to painting both in the choice ...
Category
2010s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pencil, Handmade Paper
Infanta de la Verdad
Located in Burlingame, CA
'Infanta de la Verdad' features the face of a young woman with cactus surrounding her head and a bird and flowering cactus (bottom) representing life, death and the struggles in betw...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pencil, Paper, Graphite
Portrait of a Seated Lady - French 1880 Victorian art female portrait drawing
Located in London, GB
This lovely pencil and charcoal drawing is attributed to circle of French noted artist Jacques Joseph Tissot. Created around 1880 the drawing is of a woman relaxing on a reclining chair...
Category
19th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Charcoal, Pencil
Portrait of a Lady - Scottish art early 20thC drawing society woman hat cameo
Located in London, GB
This is a fine circa 1910 pencil drawing of a Scottish society lady. Executed by one of the leading artists of the day in the circle of John Lavery it is a very striking and fascina...
Category
19th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Charcoal, Pencil
Portrait of Decima Moore - Actress & Suffragette Edwardian drawing female artist
By Maria Cowell nee Sayer
Located in London, GB
A fine, circa 1907, Edwardian pencil / charcoal drawing. Executed by Maria Cowell nee Sayer, it depicts a portrait of Decima Moore - an actress and Suffragette. A very striking and f...
Category
Early 1900s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Charcoal, Carbon Pencil
Portrait of a Lady - British Art Deco 30's drawing young woman good provenance
Located in London, GB
A fine and detailed Art Deco pencil, black, red and white chalk portrait of a young woman by Hubert Williams. The work dates to circa 1930 and is very skilful in its execution. A bea...
Category
1930s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Chalk, Color Pencil
Nude Female - Italian British art Edwardian nude portrait drawing female artist
Located in London, GB
This is a fine detailed and superbly executed Edwardian drawing by Estella Canziani which dated to circa 1911. Drawn by one of the leading artists of the day, it is a very striking a...
Category
1910s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Carbon Pencil
Pencil Portrait of a Young Man by 20th Century British Artist John Sergeant
Located in London, GB
JOHN SERGEANT
(1937-2010)
Head of a Young Man
Pencil
32 by 25 cm., 12 ½ by 10 in.
(frame size 51 by 43 cm., 20 by 17 in.)
Sergeant was born in London, the son of a civil servant....
Category
1960s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pencil
Portrait of a Lady - British art Post Impressionist 40s drawing female portrait
By Edward Bainbridge Copnall
Located in London, GB
A dramatic head and shoulders portrait of a lady in coloured chalks attributed to noted British artist Edward Bainbridge Copnall. This is just a stunning artwork which dates to circa...
Category
Early 20th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Chalk
Emily & The Baby II (Grace Borgenicht Gallery)
By Wolf Kahn
Located in New York, NY
Wolf Kahn
Emily & The Baby II (Grace Borgenicht Gallery), 1960
Pastel on Paper.
Hand signed by the artist on the front. Grace Borgenicht gallery label on the back
Vintage frame inclu...
Category
1960s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pastel
Cecil Beaton - 20th Century Portrait Drawing of a girl with ringlets
By Cecil Beaton
Located in London, GB
SIR CECIL BEATON, CBE
(1904-1980)
Regency Girl with Ringlets
Pencil
Unframed, in mount only
21.5 by 18 cm., 8 ½ by 7 in.
(mount size 33.5 by 30 cm., 1...
Category
Mid-20th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pencil
'Young Lady Seated', Royal Academy London, PAFA, Queen Victoria, King Edward VII
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed upper left, 'C. J. Turrell' for Charles James Turrell (British-American, 1845-1932) and dated 1876.
Framed dimensions: 12 x 1 x 10 inches
Charles James Turrell was one of the most talented miniaturists of his age. Born in London, he studied under a Mr. Sargeant, perhaps Frederick Sargeant who exhibited at the Royal Academy, before visiting the United States in 1867 where he painted miniatures at the studio of photographer Napoleon Sarony. During this time, Turrell had distinguished sitters including members of the Vanderbilt, Whitney, and Morgan families. While in America, Turrell married and would go on to maintain successful careers in both New York and London where, in 1869, he opened a studio on Bond Street.
Turrell exhibited widely and with success including annually at the Royal Academy (1873-1904), the Society of Miniaturists (1873 – 1932), the Brooklyn Art Association (1868), the Pennsylvania Academy of Art (1901) and at the Paris Salons. His sitters included Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, and Queen Alexandra, when she was Princess of Wales (1884). In 1890, he was appointed official miniature painter to Queen Victoria. Turrell's work is held in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace as well as in the permanent collections of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, London's Victoria & Albert Museum and the Mount Vernon Collection in Washington D.C., among others.
Reference:
E. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, Jacques Busse, 1999 Nouvelle Édition, Gründ 1911, Vol. 13, page 863; Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Peter Hastings Falk, Sound View Press 1999, Vol. 3, page 3354; Mallett’s Index of Artists, Daniel Trowbridge Mallett, Peter Smith: New York 1948 Edition, R.R. Bowker Company 1935, page 444; The Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940, J. Johnson and A. Greutzner, 1980 Edition, Antique Collectors’ Club 1976, page 511; Dictionary of British Miniature...
Category
1870s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor, Gouache, Laid Paper
The Plain Gangster - Early 20th Century British Illustration by Rex Whistler
Located in London, GB
REX JOHN WHISTLER
(British 1905-1944)
The Plain Gangster
Inscribed with title
Pen, brush and ink
Framed
20 by 16.5 cm., 8 by 10 ½ in.
(frame size 39 b...
Category
Early 20th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Ink
Man sitting in the studio - Thinking about art -
Located in Berlin, DE
Adolph Eduard Otto von Faber du Faur (1828 Ludwigsburg - 1901 Munich). Man sitting in the studio. Watercolour painting, 43 x 27 cm (visible size), 73 x 53 cm (frame), monogrammed at lower right, estate stamp.
Upper right corner neatly repaired, small tear in the wall to the left of the sitter.
- Thinking about art -
About the artwork
The sitter, an elderly man, is seated in a studio on a pedestal reminiscent of an academy hall. The earthy, dark tones give the scene a weighty quality. The lightest tones are found in the incarnate parts of the figure, which do not stand out from the other colours of the picture, but are linked to them. As a result, the sitter's face is both part of and the highlight of the colour references in the picture. The colour of the sitter's skin is reflected in his pink coat, while his white-grey hair matches the colour of the wall next to him. This almost monochrome wall surface, in turn, is connected across the portrait to the framed picture standing on the floor, which seems to have been erased by this correspondence with the empty wall surface. Through the palette, which is positioned directly behind the sitter's head, the reference to painting, which is already given by the studio space, is explicitly linked to the sitter, who thus seems to be contemplating the question of the meaning of art.
This raises the question of whether Faber Du Faur, who had become lonely in his old age, might have painted a self-portrait here in his later years. In addition to the studio setting, the sitter's explicit reference to the palette and the fact that the picture was part of his estate, the only summary elaboration of the body suggests a self-portrait, while the representation of the face is concretised with the wide-open eyes typical of a self-portrait. This concentration on the face gives the impression of the artist's melancholy introspection, captured by the palette and related to the meaning of painting, whose dark character is reinforced by the concealment of the palette hanging on the right of the picture in the light tones so characteristic of Faber Du Faur. In the course of this resignation, Faber du Faur advises his son Hans, who has also become a painter: "Promise me one thing: never move to Munich, they'll kill you here!"
Whoever the sitter may be, the references to painting make the portrait a resigned self-contemplation by Faber Du Faur, focused on art.
About the artist
After leaving school, Otto Faber du Faur entered the service of the Württemberg army, at the same time cultivating his artistic talent. In 1851, on the recommendation of his father Christian Wilhelm, who was himself a battle painter, he spent six months in Munich as an apprentice to Alexander von Kotzebue. In 1852 he was granted a year's leave of absence from military service to study battle painting in the studio of Adolphe Yvon...
Category
1890s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Sketch of a head - Carved in stone -
Located in Berlin, DE
Emil Faesch (1865 Basel - 1915 Basel). Sketch of a head. Charcoal on painting cardboard, 60 x 47.5 cm (folio size), signed and dated at lower right "E. Faesch. 1888.".
Minor browning.
- Carved in stone -
About the artwork
The life-size head has an immensely present presence. This effect is due to the fact that Faesch took his cue from academic classical...
Category
1880s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Chalk
Portrait of Archibald Hartrick - 1884 chalk drawing by Frank Lewis Emanuel
Located in London, GB
FRANK LEWIS EMANUEL
(1865-1948)
Portrait of Archibald Hartrick
Signed, inscribed and dated l.l.: A S HARTRICK (artist) by F L EMANUEL 1884
Black chalk heightened with white chalk on blue paper...
Category
1880s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Chalk
Sketchbook Page with Figures and Anatomical Details in Pencil on Paper - Germany
Located in Soquel, CA
Sketchbook Page with Figures and Anatomical Details in Pencil on Paper
Drawings of a man at a desk and other figurative sections by an unknown artist (19th Century). On the left sid...
Category
1880s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Pencil
'Portrait of a Tribesman.' Pencil and Conte crayon on paper circa 1960's.
Located in Frome, Somerset
A fine profile portrait drawing of an elder tribesman. ( specific region unknown to us). Pencil and conte crayon on paper circa 1960's. Masterful use of the mediums . Unsigned. The q...
Category
1960s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pencil
Set of Three Gouache & Watercolour Paintings of Tribal Objects on Handmade Paper
Located in Cotignac, FR
A set of three framed watercolour and gouache studies on handmade paper applied to Vélin d'Arches of tribal objects by French artist La Roche Laffi...
Category
Late 20th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor, Gouache, Handmade Paper
Half-length portrait of a Pharisee - In the shadow of betrayal -
Located in Berlin, DE
Hermann Prell (1854 Leipzig - 1922 Dresden-Loschwitz). Half-length portrait of a Pharisee, 1885. Sketch for the right-hand figure in the painting Judas Iscariot, 1886. Pencil drawing heightened with opaque white and black chalk on beige-grey wove paper (papier vélin), 34 x 27.8 cm (visible size), 52 x 45 cm (mount), signed, dated and inscribed "H. PRELL 1885 zu 'Judas'".
Minor browning, collection stamp on the reverse.
- In the shadow of betrayal -
About the artwork
This painting is the sketch for the head of the Pharisee offering the coins to Judas in one of Herrmann Prell's major works, the painting Betrayal of Judas, completed in 1886. The painting belongs to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and is illustrated in Adolf Rosenberg: Prell, Bielefeld and Leipzig 1901, p. 21 (Fig. 19). It is especially highlighted in Thieme-Becker (vol. 27, p. 376).
Hermann Prell, Betrayal of Judas, 1886
The monumental head, which fills the picture and is distinguished by its ornamented robe, is almost a lost profile, which in the executed painting is justified by the Pharisee's turning towards Judas. Despite the fact that the sitter withdraws from the viewer by turning away, it was necessary to artistically elaborate the motivation for the purchase of one of Christ's disciples, which is why the drawing focuses on the expression of the face, while the 'accessories' are treated in a more summary manner.
In characterising the face, Hermann Prell performs a balancing act: since the Pharisee, despite his destructive actions, is an actor in the history of salvation, the head must show a dignity appropriate to the event, but at the same time the physiognomy must also bear witness to the scheming attitude that led to the betrayal. To solve this dilemma, Prell draws on the traditional depictions of the heads of the apostles, shading the face to indicate the obdurate darkness of the spirit and moving the base of the nose slightly upwards while the mouth falls away, thus giving a physiognomic expression to the motivation of the action. The fatal drama of the betrayal is expressed in the monumentalisation of the head and in the thunderous white highlights that contrast with the darkness of the chalk.
As a study, considered by the artist to be a work in itself, this drawing reveals the pictorial problems and brainstorming of monumental painting.
About the artist
In 1872 Prell, who was one of the most important exponents of monumental painting of his time, began studying painting with Theodor Grosse at the Dresden Academy of Art and continued with Carl Gussow at the Berlin Academy in 1876. Hans von Marées taught him in Rome in 1878. More influential on his work, however, were Arnold Böcklin and Max Klinger, with whom Prell had been friends since his student days and with whom he worked together on several occasions.
Prell's first major work, which established his reputation as a monumental painter, were the frescoes in the banqueting hall of the Architektenhaus in Berlin in 1881/82, commissioned by the state and depicting the different periods of architecture. Prell then went to Italy for two years to study fresco painting. Other major commissions followed. These included monumental frescoes in the town halls of Worms (1884), Hildesheim (1882-92), Gdansk (1895) and Dresden, the staircase of the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts in Breslau (1893/94), the throne room of the German Embassy in Rome (1896-99) and the staircase of the Albertinum in Dresden (1900-1904).
From 1886 Prell taught at the academy of arts in Berlin and in 1892 he was appointed professor at the academy of arts in Dresden. His students included Osmar Schindler and Hans Unger...
Category
1880s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Chalk
Cabaret Dancers girls Austrian watercolor painting in fraimed 1930s
Located in Stockholm, SE
Signed: by Richard Geiger (1870 – 1945), Austrian - Hungarian painter. Also pencils inscriptions on reverse with date 33 (1933). By the 1920s, he worked illustrating books, bookplates and posters. His paintings included portraits, nudes, genre paintings, and mythological scenes, but he was known for his illustrations, especially his carnival motifs. Spectacular masterwork.
Size app.: 18 x 23.3 cm (roughly 7.1 x 9,2 in), framed 31.7 x 36.4 cm (roughly 12.5 x 14.3 in). Very Good condition, minimal age wear. In person actual painting may appear darker or brighter than in our pictures, strictly depending on sufficient light in your environment. Please study good resolution images for overall cosmetic condition. Glass will be removed prior to shipment for safe transit. Weight of app. 0,5 kg (without glass!) is going to measure some 2 kg volume weight packed for shipment.
R. Geiger was born in Vienna. He first attended a drawing school and then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where he studied under Christian Griepenkerl and August Eisenmenger. He studied sculpture with Fritz Klimsch at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. There he took part in the exhibitions of the Academy with his portrait busts and sculptures. In Paris he studied at the Julian Academy and worked in the studio of François Flameng...
Category
1930s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Wood, Paper, Watercolor
Paquebot à Boulogne Sur Mer, late 19th Century French Marine Drawing
Located in Cotignac, FR
Late 19th century drawing on paper of a French marine scene by noted French artist Georges Ricard-Cordingley. Carrying the atelier stamp to the bottom left and with full annotation a...
Category
Late 19th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Pencil
Ballpoint pen drawing female face
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Frame size 44x35 cm.
Is born in Madrid on the 21st july 1951.
After attending primary school, he starts to grow an enormous tendency for drawing.
At the age of 14 he begins to work in advertising and attends to the Vallecas school of arts.
At the age of 14 he travels to Switzerland and in Geneve he gets intensly into painting and decides to dedicate himself only to it.
When he returns to Spain he enrolls Arts Studies, and at the begining of summer '66, he visits Sitges, where he'll come back year after year and where ultimately he'll set his home.
At this time he starts selling his painting in the flea market in Madrid and later in Sitges, setting himself on the street, thus completing his studies and making it economically.
While he's in Madrid he recives lessons by Pedro Mozas at Bellas Artes and starts to learn profoundly about painting.
In 1969 he starts painting portraits in the streets.
In Sitges he creates, with other friends, a great artistic atmosphere in the Paseo de la Ribera, by the sea, that today still exists.
He starts travelling through Europe, visiting and painting in Paris, London and Amsterdam.
In the middle of this bohemian epoque, he moves to the Cannary Islands during the winters for 5 years in a row, he moves in the Parque de Santa Catalina "Las Palmas de Gran Canaria" where he works and meet all sorts of people in the streets, which later would mark his pictoric line.
He becomes friend with Sidney Nagley in 1969, who organizes his first exhibition in Toronto, Canada.
Afterwards he'll leave his studies and start painting exclusively in his studio.
He gathers his first exhibition in the Ateneu of Barcelona in 1970.
He befriends with the art critic of La Vanguardia, Fernando Gutierrez and the Count of Caralt orders him a set of illustration for a new edition of Garcia Lorcas Romancero Gitano.
His first exhibition in a commercial gallery is done in the Majestic Gallery in Barcelona with a gorgeous collection of nudity drawings.
He achieves huge success and for some years he affords his painting thanks to those drawings.
During a period in Madrid, Mr Ponce de León...
Category
2010s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Ballpoint Pen
William Henry Barribal - 1920s British watercolour of a Girl in a Fancy Bonnet
Located in London, GB
WILLIAM HENRY BARRIBAL
(1873-1956)
Her Best Bonnet
Watercolour and bodycolour over traces of pencil
Framed
23.5 by 18.5 cm., 9 ¼ by 7 ¼ in.
(frame size 42 by 36 cm., 16 ½ by 14 ¼...
Category
1920s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Portrait of a Young Handsome Man (Army GI)
Located in Wilton Manors, FL
Beautiful WWII era portrait of a young man by Louis Krupp (1888-1978). Charcoal on paper measures 16.5 x 22.5 inches, 25 X 30 IN MATTING. Signed and dated...
Category
Mid-20th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Charcoal
Saudi Arabia King Faisal Time Magazine Cover - Man of The Year Study
By Bob Peak
Located in Miami, FL
Master portrait artist and illustration legend Bob Peak captures the likeness, dignity and essence of Saudi Arabia's King Faisal for Time Magazine Cover ...
Category
1970s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Archival Paper, Pastel
Portrait of Leopold Myers by Sir William Rothenstein
Located in Soquel, CA
Stately sanguine portrait of Leopold Hamilton Myers (Novelist) by Sir William Rothenstein (English, 1872-1945). Captured in Rothenstein's characteristic style, Myers looks directly at the viewer with a neutral expression. Although this portrait uses only two colors and minimal shading, the likeness of Myers is incredibly well captured. Leo (Leopold) Hamilton Myers (1881 – 1944) was a British novelist. Numerous examples like this one of the writer are in the Tate Museum.
Initialed and dated in the lower right corner ("W.R. 1936")
Inscription on verso indicating materials, subject, and artist.
Presented in a new cream colored mat with foamcore backing.
Mat size: 18"H x 12"W
Paper size: 15.25"H x 10.75"W
William Rothenstein (English, 1872-1945) was born into a German-Jewish family in Bradford, West Yorkshire. His father, Moritz, emigrated from Germany in 1859 to work in Bradford's burgeoning textile industry. Soon afterwards he married Bertha Dux, and they had six children, of which William was the fifth. Rothenstein was knighted in 1931.
Rothenstein left Bradford Grammar School at the age of sixteen to study at the Slade School of Art*, London (1888-1893), where he was taught by Alphonse Legros, and the Académie Julian* in Paris (1889-1893), where he met and was encouraged by James McNeill Whistler, Edgar Degas and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Whilst in Paris he also befriended the Anglo-Australian artist Charles Conder, with whom he shared a studio in Montmartre. In 1893 he returned to England to work on "Oxford Characters" a series of lithographic* portraits.
In Oxford he met and became a close friend of the caricaturist* and parodist Max Beerbohm, who later immortalised him in the short story Enoch Soames (1919). During the 1890s Rothenstein exhibited with the New English Art Club* and, in 1900, won a silver medal for his painting The Doll's House at the Exposition Universelle. In 1898 he co-founded the Carfax Gallery in St. James' Piccadilly with John Fothergill. During its early years the gallery was closely associated with such artists as Charles Conder, Philip Wilson Steer, Charles Ricketts and Augustus John. It also exhibited the work of Auguste Rodin, whose growing reputation in England owed much to Rothenstein's friendship and missionary zeal. The gallery was later the home for all three exhibitions of The Camden Town Group*, led by Rothenstein's friend and close contemporary Walter Sickert.
Rothenstein is best known for his portrait drawings of famous individuals and for being an official war artist in both World War I and World War II. He was also a member of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters & Gravers. The style and subject of his paintings varies, though certain themes reappear, in particular an interest in 'weighty' or 'essential' subjects tackled in a restrained manner. Good examples include Parting at Morning (1891), Mother and Child (1903) and Jews Mourning at a Synagogue (1907) - all of which are owned by the Tate Gallery. The National Portrait Gallery owns over two hundred of his portraits. In 2011 the BBC and the Public Catalogue Foundation began cataloguing all of his paintings in public ownership online.
Between 1902 and 1912 Rothenstein lived in Hampstead, London, where his social circle included such names as H.G.Wells, Joseph Conrad and the artist Augustus John. Amongst the young artists to visit Rothenstein in Hampstead were Mark Gertler...
Category
1930s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Conté, Handmade Paper
Woodpecker, realist animal portrait, watercolor and gouache
By Dina Brodsky
Located in New York, NY
Dina Brodsky is a contemporary realist miniaturist painter and curator known for her detailed drawings of architecture, trees, and wildlife. Her miniatures carry with them the tradit...
Category
2010s Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Watercolor, Gouache
Seaman in petticoat breeches and slops, smoking a pipe, carrying a carpetbag.
Located in Middletown, NY
English School, 18th century
Pen and black ink with gray wash on cream laid paper, 9 1/4 x 5 inches (238 x132 mm). 1/4 inch repaired loss, top center, to the left of the figure’s h...
Category
18th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Ink, Watercolor, Laid Paper, Pen
German Female Artist, Study or Portrait of a Girl, Expressionism, Realism
Located in Greven, DE
Helene Rutkowski is an artist who was born in 1862. The maker's first piece to be offered at auction was "Baumbestandene Allee im Herbst" at Quentin Auction House in 2021.
She worked in the style of Realism and Expressionism and her works remind one of Käthe Kollwitz.
This beautiful drawing...
Category
20th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Charcoal, Handmade Paper
Young woman by Alexandre Blanchet - Pastel on paper 50x56 cm
Located in Geneva, CH
Work on paper
Category
Mid-20th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pastel
Early 20th Century British Portrait by William Henry Barribal
Located in London, GB
WILLIAM HENRY BARRIBAL
(1873-1956)
Girl in a Green Hat
Signed
Watercolour and bodycolour and silver paint
Framed
19 by 19 cm., 7 ½ by 7 ½ in.
(frame size 38 by 37.5 cm., 15 by 14 ...
Category
Early 20th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Infanta Madre Tierra (Mother Earth)
Located in Burlingame, CA
'Infanta Madre Tierra (Mother Earth)' features the face of a young woman with flora motif (top) and series of birds and flora motif (bottom) representing ...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pencil, Paper, Graphite
Modern Realistic Black and White Pencil Drawing Study of Smiling Mouths and Lips
Located in Houston, TX
Modern realistic black and white pencil drawing study by American artist Scott Martin. The work features six meticulously rendered studi...
Category
20th Century Realist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Pencil
Realist portrait drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Realist 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, orange and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Chikako Okada, Gustave Poetzsch, Mark Beard, and Dina Brodsky. Frequently made by artists working with Paper, and Pencil and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Realist portrait drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 3 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 $105 and tops out at $224,500, while the average work sells for $1,960.
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