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Abstract Paintings For Sale
Period: 1950s
Period: 1920s
This Week's Listings Only
Vintage American Modernist Abstract Cubist Still Life Framed Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Very impressive mid 20th century cubist abstract. Oil on canvas. Framed.
Category

1950s Cubist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Pillar of Zen #124, unique signed gouache painting Andre Zarre Gallery, 1959
Located in New York, NY
Charmion von Wiegand Pillar of Zen #124, 1959 Gouache on paper painting Hand signed, titled and dated on the front Unique Provenance: Andre Zarre Gallery, with label verso (Estate of renowned gallerist Andre Zarre, ne Andre Sowulewski) Measurements: Framed 26.5 inches vertical by 25.5 horizontal by 2 inches Artwork: 21 inches vertical by 22 inches horizontal Mid century modern, geometric, spiritual abstraction, mystical The Estate of the celebrated artist Charmion Von Wiegand has been represented exclusively by Michael Rosenfeld Gallery since 1998. From March 3 to August 13, 2023, Charmion Von Wiegand was the subject of an acclaimed retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Basel, and she has received major attention in the price, including a June, 2023 ArtNews feature entitled, "Who Was Charmion von Wiegand and Why Is She Important?". Her work was also featured in a solo presentation by Rosenfeld Gallery at the New York Art Show held at the Park Avenue Armory, which also received critical acclaim. Artists Biography - courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery: Known for her vibrant, geometric paintings that originate a deeply personal language of spiritual enlightenment expressed through a constructivist mode of abstraction, Charmion von Wiegand (1896–1983) was born in Chicago but spent much of her childhood traveling. The daughter of a journalist for Hearst, von Wiegand eventually settled in New York in 1915 to attend Barnard College and Columbia University, where she took classes at the School of Journalism while nurturing a growing interest in art history. In 1925, von Wiegand realized that she wanted to be an artist and set up a studio in Greenwich Village, teaching herself how to paint while pursuing a career as a journalist. In 1929, she secured a position in Moscow as a foreign correspondent for Hearst, the only woman at the desk at the time. In 1932, von Wiegand returned to New York and married Russian émigré Joseph Freeman, who co-founded and edited the leftist journal New Masses. Von Wiegand began writing art criticism for New Masses as well as for other publications, including New Theatre, ARTnews, and Arts Magazine. When the Abstract American Artists (AAA) held their inaugural exhibition, von Wiegand reviewed it. An early champion of abstract art, von Wiegand became close friends with AAA founder Carl Holty. In 1941, Holty introduced von Wiegand to Piet Mondrian, who would have a profound impact on her art. Fascinated by Mondrian’s artistic philosophy, von Wiegand played a key role in the introduction of his work to American audiences, translating many of the Dutch artist’s writings into English and assisting in the composition of his influential article “Toward the True Vision of Reality” (1941). Through her friendship with Mondrian, von Wiegand re-kindled her interest in Theosophy (a religion established in the late 19th century that combines aspects of Hinduism, Buddhism, occultism, and esotericism) and embarked on an extended study of neoplasticism. In her artwork, she incorporated Mondrian’s iconic grid but rejected the constraints of pure neoplasticism and embraced a wide range of influences including surrealism and German expressionism. In 1942, von Wiegand became a member of the AAA, exhibiting regularly with the group and eventually serving as its president from 1951 to 1953. In the late 1940s, sculptor and fellow AAA member Ibram Lassaw gave her a translation of The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life, which inspired von Wiegand to immerse herself in a study of Buddhist art. She began incorporating Buddhist motifs such as stupas and mandalas into her paintings, and her spiritual practice steadily intensified throughout the 1950s. In 1953, her husband gifted her a copy of the Taoist I Ching Book of Changes, a guide for divining meaning from randomly derived numbers arranged in a hexagram—a form the artist readily incorporated into her painting. Von Wiegand’s study of Theosophy also intensified over these years, bolstered by her increased access to the religion’s primary sources composed by the religion’s founders and their successors at the New York Theosophical Society’s library. Von Wiegand’s search for the sacred and transcendent ultimately led her to Tibetan Buddhism and, in 1967, von Wiegand met Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, a Gelugpa monk who had recently arrived in New York, who would mentor her spiritual study in the tradition of Mahayana Buddhism until her death. Her travels in the 1960s and 1970s took her to Tibet and India, where she had an audience with the Dalai Lama, who was living in exile in Dharamsala. Many works from these decades incorporate symbols and schematics drawn from Theosophical prismatic color charts, Chinese astrology and tantric yoga. In 1978, she was the subject of a PBS documentary titled The Circle of Charmion von Wiegand, which was scored by Philip Glass. In 1980, von Wiegand was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1982, the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach (FL) organized her first retrospective exhibition. She died the following year in New York, bequeathing her estate to Khyongla Rato and the Tibet Center of New York. In 1998, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery became the sole representative of her estate and has presented her work in four solo and multiple group exhibitions. Recent notable exhibitions that have included her work are The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, 2009) and Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America (Newark Museum, NJ, 2010). In March 2023, the Kunstmuseum Basel (Switzerland) opened the first comprehensive museum retrospective of von Wiegand’s work in Europe. Von Wiegand’s work is represented in numerous museum collections including the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy (Andover, MA); Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, NY); Arithmeum, University of Bonn (Germany); Birmingham Museum of Art (Alabama); Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin; Brooklyn Museum (NY); Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, PA); The Cleveland Museum of Art (OH); Indianapolis Museum of Art (IN); Fondazione Marguerite Arp (Locarno, Switzerland); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Massachusetts); The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY); The Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY); Newark Museum of Art (New Jersey); Seattle Art Museum (WA); Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC); Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN); Weatherspoon Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College (Clinton, NY); Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY); and Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT). More about gallerist Andre Zarre A tribute in the New Criterion: Dispatch August 11, 2020 Andre Zarre, 1942–2020 by Dana Gordon On the late New York gallery pioneer. Art should never be aggressively explained; art should be felt. —Andre Zarre, 1977 Often, in the starlit New York cultural mecca, a longtime important figure fades away through the penumbra and dies without notice. Such was the fate of Andre Zarre, the contemporary art dealer, who passed away a few weeks ago. Andy, as he wanted friends to call him, opened his eponymous gallery in 1974 just off Madison Avenue on Sixty-ninth Street. He soon moved it to the omphalos of the art world in that era, 41 East Fifty-seventh Street, the Fuller Building. Over the years he moved to SoHo and then to Chelsea, as fashion and real estate prices pushed the art souk hither and thither. To understand his importance, all you need do is take a look at a list of artists who had solo shows at the Andre Zarre Gallery. This includes such names, from an early generation, as Sonia Delaunay, Nassos Daphnis, Sari Dienes, and Perle Fine. Among a subsequent generation are Pat Lipsky, Jay Milder, Thornton Willis, and Kes Zapkus.1 And this list does not include the many knowns and unknowns who were in his lively group shows. Zarre had a real “eye” and was a champion of abstract art from the moment he founded his gallery—even among the gathering storms of conceptual and political art, which he eschewed. He showed a good deal of figurative art as well. His galleries were always spacious and unpretentious, oriented simply to show the art. In the words of Dee Shapiro, who showed with the Zarre gallery many times, “He had a photographic memory and knew a lot about art and was always interested in the artist’s life.” Reliable biographical information on Zarre is scarce, but he said of his background that he was born in Poland in 1942 and that his parents were a diplomat and a socialite. He left home for the United States at the age of fifteen. During his decades as an art dealer in New York, Zarre did not appear to accumulate wealth, though he acquired a collection and lived on Park Avenue. “He was not personally aggressive in that way. People had to come to him,” Dee Shapiro said. He was honest in his financial dealings with artists, which not all art dealers are. For a long time while running the gallery he had a second job as a supervisor in an airline office and he kept little to no additional staff in the gallery. He supported a brother who remained in Poland. Among artists, Zarre was known to be quite ornery. After my show at his gallery in 1997, I refused to enter it for seventeen years. Then I ran into him in Chelsea and he offered me another show, an opportunity I gladly accepted, but he remained just as disagreeable. He showed the work of many women, probably more than any other gallery, save those devoted to showing only women. Collectors, curators, and writers found him mostly friendly. As Peter Reginato put it, Zarre was a “strange guy but I liked him. I think he was a dealer who was more interested in the art than in making money, but somehow he lasted forty-plus years.” Zarre is not known to have kept extensive or extant records of his gallery’s long history, though these may emerge in time. Scouring the Internet, one may compile a partial list of more than eighty artists who had solo shows at the Andre Zarre Gallery:Nancy Azara, Ellen Banks, Mary Barnes, Tony Bechara, Juan Bernal, Stephanie Bernheim, Randy Bloom, Elena Borstein, Michael Boyd, Fritz Bultman, Ed Buonagurio, Yoan Capote, Sonia Delaunay, Nassos Daphnis, Cathy Diamond, Sari Dienes, Joseph Dolinsky, Beata Drozd, Ronnie Elliot, William Fares, Perle Fine, Lynne Frehm, Ben Georgia, Mikel Glass, Dana Gordon, Juanita Guccione, Fred Gutzeit, Don Hazlitt, Amy Hill, Clinton Hill, Monroe Hodder, Budd Hopkins, Arlan Huang, Richard Hunt, Rhia Hurt, Buffie Johnson, Alexander Kaletski, Robert Kaupelis...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Paper, Gouache

Untitled (Highrise)
By Karl Benjamin
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Untitled (Highrise), 1954, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, 20 x 20 inches, presented in its original frame Karl Benjamin was a California-based artist who is best known...
Category

1950s Hard-Edge Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Abstract composition" mixed media on paper cm. 26 x 20
Located in Torino, IT
Black,White,Picasso,abstract Atelier stamp lower right Dora Maar, original name Henrietta Theodora Markovitch (Marković), (born November 22, 1907, Paris, France—died July 16, 1997, ...
Category

1950s Abstract Paintings

Materials

Paper, Mixed Media

Abstract Painting of Shells
Located in Houston, TX
Small size watercolor image of shells. Painting is mainly blue, yellow and brown tones. Painting is framed in a painted wooden gold frame with a yellow matte. Dimensions without Fram...
Category

1950s American Impressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Watercolor

Large Vintage American School New York Modernist Abstract Framed Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Vintage abstract original oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed.
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

San Francisco Bay Area Seascape with Ships in Oil on Cardboard
Located in Soquel, CA
San Francisco Bay Area Seascape with Ships in Oil on Cardboard Seascape with large ships by Honora Berg (American, 1897-1985). The ocean is shown in...
Category

1950s American Impressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Cardboard, Oil

Indian with Pipe
Located in New York, NY
This exceptional oil on canvas by master Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein is an exceptional and unique example of his early pre-pop work. It is signed by the artist, upper right. After m...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Large Antique French Avante Garde Abstract Expressionist Surreal Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Rare and finely painted French modernist abstract painting by Jacques Doucet (1924 - 1994) . Framed. Oil on canvas. Signed. Artist Bio: Jacques Doucet's work is inextricably bo...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American School Modernist Abstract Framed Geometric Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Image size, 30L x 24H.
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American Modernist Abstract Expressionist Large Original Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Oil on canvas. Signed Verso. Harriet was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and lived with her husband in Park Slope for over 35 years. She attended the Brooklyn Museum Scho...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American School Cubist Signed Framed Abstract Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Impressive early American modernist abstract oil painting. Framed. Oil on board. Signed. Image size, 12H by 10L.
Category

1950s Cubist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American Impressionist Fauvist New England Beach Cottages Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Impressive early American impressionist fauvist beach scene painting. Oil on board. Nicely framed. Very nicely painted and great color.
Category

1920s Impressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Untitled, 56-21" Stephen Pace, Pulsating Forms, Abstract Expressionist Painting
Located in New York, NY
Stephen Pace Untitled, 56-21, 1956 Signed and dated lower right Oil on canvas 22 x 30 inches Born in Charleston, Missouri, Stephen Pace grew up in Indiana, where his parents operat...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mid Century Autumn Trees Landscape
Located in Soquel, CA
Vivid mid century landscape of autumn trees blurring into colorful abstraction by Helen Gleiforst (American, 1903-1997). Presented in a giltwood frame. Image size: 10" H X 8" W. G...
Category

1950s American Impressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Masonite, Oil

Trees in Bloom Along the River Landscape in oil on Heavy Cardstock
Located in Soquel, CA
Trees in Bloom Along the River Landscape in Oil on Heavy Cardstock Bold oil landscape by Honora Berg (American, 1897-1985). Trees with pink and white blooms line the bank of a river. The river is shown in streaks of pink, green, and yellow, reflecting the surrounding landscape. At the far edge of the river, bright green mountains sharply rise from the bank. Acquired with a collection of the artist's work. Stamp from the Larry Miller Fine Art on verso. Unframed. Board size: 14.75"H x 22"W Honora Berg (American, 1897-1985) was an Abstract Expressionist and Bay Area Figurative School artist who studied at the San Francisco Art Institute with David Park, Elmer Bischoff and James Budd Dixon...
Category

1950s Abstract Impressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Illustration Board

Antique American Modernist Pear Still Life Framed Original Fine Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Incredible early American modernist still life oil painting. Housed in a great antique giltwood frame. Oil on board.
Category

1950s Impressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American Abstract Expressionist Large Signed Framed Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Oil on canvas. Framed. Image size, 21H x 40L. Signed on verso.
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Forest Landscape in Sumi Ink on Paper
Located in Soquel, CA
Forest Landscape in Sumi Ink on Paper High contrast abstracted landscape by an unknown artist "Shmitt" (20th Century). The edge of a forest is shown in bold strokes of sumi ink, cre...
Category

1950s Abstract Impressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Paper, Sumi Ink

Antique American School Female Artist Abstract Expressionist Cubist Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique modernist abstract painting by Elsie Orfuss (Born 1913). Oil on canvas. Signed on verso. Nicely framed. `
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American Modernist Landscape Framed New England FallOil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Charming and well painted rural New England modernist landcape by Vern Henry Smith (1927 - 2007. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed.
Category

1950s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Monumental Abstract Expressionist Signed 1953 Framed Original Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist abstract expressionist oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed.
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

'Abstract in Coral and Jade', Large Mid-century American Biomorphic Abstraction
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
A substantial, mid-century American Abstract oil comprising biomorphic and dimensional forms in shades of coral, jade and straw, shown gathered around a central, rectangular element ...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Abstract 1955 - British abstract oil painting Slade School artist
Located in London, GB
This superb British 1950's abstract oil on board painting is by noted Slade School trained contemporary artist Leo Davy. Davy was born in Yorkshire but settled in Cornwall in 1968 an...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil

Rare Early Antique American School Fauvist Woman Portrait Framed Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist portrait oil painting. Oil on canvas, lain to board. Framed. Very finely painted and a rare fauvist palette. No signature found.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

'Abstracted Cityscape', Modernist Abstract Oil, David Rockefeller Estate
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower right, 'Max Gunther' (German, 1934-1974); additionally signed verso, dated 1958 and titled 'Cité Décomposée'. Provenance: Estate of David Rockefeller...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Nature morte" Bela de Kristo, Mid-century Cubist Still Life Abstract Cello
By Bela De Kristo
Located in New York, NY
Bela de Kristo Nature morte, circa 1956 Signed lower right Oil on board 19 5/8 x 11 3/4 inches Provenance: Alexander Kahan Fine Arts, New York Private ...
Category

1950s Cubist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Dynamic & Colorful Mid-Century Painting by French Artist Michel Patrix
Located in Chicago, IL
A dynamic & colorful Mid-Century painting (ca. 1950) by French Artist Michel Patrix, in purples, yellow and reds. The painting is titled "Coings au Plateau Noir" or (Quinces on a bl...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American School Signed Abstract Expressionist Framed Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American school signed abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Image size, 19L x 13H.
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Collage - Still Life
Located in Storrs, CT
Brilliantly-colored collage with various texts and butterfly prints. Oil on canvas measures 20 x 24, presented in a modern frame with white linen liner; frame measures 26 5/8 x 30 5/...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil

"Thelo #5" Diana Kurz, circa 1959 Gestural Abstract Expressionist Painting
Located in New York, NY
Diana Kurz Thelo #5, circa 1959 Oil on canvas 22 x 20 inches Diana Kurz (born 1936) is an Austrian-born feminist painter. In 1938, Diana Kurz's family fled Austria, first to Englan...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American School Cubist Signed Rare Early Framed Abstract Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Impressive early American modernist abstract oil painting. Framed. Oil on board. Signed.
Category

1950s Cubist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

'Forms in Charcoal and Jade', San Francisco Bay Area Abstraction, SFMFA, CWS
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower right, 'Gilberg' for Robert George Gilberg (American, 1911-1970) and dated '58'. Born in Oakland, Robert George Gilberg first studied at the Oakland Art Center during t...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Encaustic, Gouache, Laid Paper

Original Abstract Expressionist 1959 New York Female Artist Irene Zevon Musical
Located in Buffalo, NY
An original abstract expressionist oil painting by American female artist Irene Zevon created and dated in 1959. This piece entitled "Musical" is a prime example of Zevon's relation...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

Monumental Abstract Modernist Oil Panel Oregon Centennial Exposition Mural 1959
By Louis Bunce
Located in Portland, OR
Monumental modernist oil on panel painting by Louis Demott Bunce (1907-1983), from an installation for the Oregon Centennial Exposition, 1959. A rare & important and monumental abstract painting by the celebrated Oregon artist Louis Bunce, the artist was commissioned to paint a mural for the 1959 Oregon Centennial & Trade Fair in Portland, the installation was titled " Gay Garden Way ", it was painted for the exterior of the Horticultural building. The mural having abstract plant abstractions, according to Bunce in his own words it was "the rounded shapes of flowers and the sun", the mural created a major furor from the conservative art public. The painting signed and dated by the artist lower left, the work was sold in the late 1980s through the celebrated Laura Russo Gallery, this painting is featured in Roger Hull's book; "Louis Bunce, Dialogue with Modernism". The painting is in good condition and ready to grace your wall. Louis Bunce attended high school and the Museum Art School before leaving for the Art Students League in New York. He established a New York connection that began when he first attended classes there in 1927 and continued over the years with frequent visits. He became friends with many promising artists, including Jackson Pollock and David Smith. In 1939 he worked for the WPA Easel Project in New York and by the time he returned to Portland he was an established artist on the East Coast. He worked at the WPA art center in Salem as an Instructor and Assistant Director. His work included murals, two of which are in the Post Offices in Grants Pass and St. Johns. Their subjects, mining and orchard farming, are activities of each region. "I have always been visually drawn to the landscape, at first the desert and mountain regions of Wyoming; then the lush and gentle color of the Pacific Northwest and the urban landscape of New York." From 1942-1945 he worked as an illustrator, a tool designer, and in assembly for the Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation. After WWII, Bunce joined the faculty of the Museum Art School in Portland, where he had been a student in 1925-1926. He taught there until his retirement in 1972. He excelled at producing screen-prints and introduced this technique to Oregon. While maintaining a national reputation throughout the 1950s and 1960s, some of New York's most prestigious galleries represented him. Theater buffs will remember his murals and portraits for Portland Civic Theater's 1938 production of Pride and Prejudice. In a career that made him one of the most recognized names in Oregon's art history, Bunce had many styles: cubism, expressionism, surrealism and abstractionism. His 1958 mural in the Portland International Airport presents this abstract style: "whirling propellers and shadows of the concourse as seen from above." It was controversial at the time as being too abstract for a public art project. Louis and wife Eda opened a full-time art gallery in Portland in 1949, called the Kharouba. Located first at 1016 SE Morrison, then at SW 11th and Alder, the gallery represented many of the leading artists of the day: Josephine Cameron, William Givler, Clifford Gleason, Jack Hammack, Charles Heaney, Frederick Heidel, George Johanson, Jack McLarty, Rick Norwood, C.S. Price, Arthur Runquist, Jolan Torok, Charles Voorhies...
Category

1950s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil

John Hatch American Cubist Abstract Oil Painting 1950's Mid C Egyptian Mural
Located in Buffalo, NY
An original oil on board painting by American modernist John W. Hatch. This incredible cubist painting was created in the 1950's. Estate stamped on the reverse. The painting comes housed in a modern black frame presentation. John Woodsum Hatch 1919-1998 During his fifty-year career as an artist, John Woodsum Hatch explored the people, the landscape, and the seascape around him. From his extensive travels to his years in New Hampshire, he developed a body of work that captures a sense of place. Through watercolor, ink and sand, he depicted the grandeur of the White Mountains. The crisp light and distinct topography of the Isles of Shoals and Great Bay Estuary are precisely and clearly documented in acrylic and tempera paintings. His ability to convey the sheer scale and longevity of the mountains and sea, and by comparison the fleeting nature of human life, conveys in a not-so-subtle way that the natural environment is to be revered and preserved. Hatch took his first teaching job at the University of New Hampshire in 1949, the same year he graduated from Yale University. He never left. A former student, Sam Cady, described his contributions: “He was a wonderful mix of jokester and sage. A teacher who obviously loved people, loved teaching, and had a great gift for it.” After retiring in 1985, he was made an honorary Professor Emeritus at UNH. Hatch contributed to New Hampshire's cultural life in three areas: his teaching, his art, and his community service. His effectiveness in these three areas can be traced his commitment to give something of himself to help others. Many artists teach by necessity and resent it as a drain on their creative energies but Hatch found his greatest fulfillment from a combination of teaching, making art, and being deeply involved with his community as an art historian and as an environmentalist. Hatch’s work can be seen in numerous public collections, including: the Addison Gallery of American Art; DeCordova Museum; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; State of New Hampshire's Living Treasures Collection, and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. John Woodsum Hatch, New Hampshire's 1997 Living Treasure Award recipient, died on August 6, 1998, at the age of 78. Hatch was a draftsman, an artist and a muralist. His works can be found in public and private collections throughout the region. He exhibited at the New Hampshire Art...
Category

1950s Cubist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Large Signed Exhibited Abstract Expressionist Original Framed Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American signed abstract expressionist oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed.
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

UNTITLED
Located in Portland, ME
Shulman, Morris (American, 1912-1978). UNTITLED. Casein on paper, circa 1951. Signed, lower left. 14 1/2 x 21 3/4 inches, framed to 23 x 30 inches. In excellent condition. Shulman st...
Category

1950s Abstract Paintings

Materials

Casein

Moonrise Over Colorado Springs: 1950s Abstract Oil Painting Green, Blue & Ochre
Located in Denver, CO
"Moonrise Over Colorado Springs" is a striking 1950s abstract expressionist oil painting by renowned artist Charles Ragland Bunnell. Created in 1952, this captivating piece features ...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil

Incredible Mid Century Abstract Artist Interior Studio View Signed Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Very impressive mid 20th century modernist interior view. So well painted with great color and bold expressive strokes. Signed illegibly. Housed in a period modernist frame. Oil ...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Oil Painting of Cubist Boats
Located in Houston, TX
Seascape view of a boat dock. Painting is in a cubist style with neutral tones. The artist uses color and shape to create depth in the painting. Placed in a thick wooden frame. Artis...
Category

1950s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil

Large Antique American Abstract Landscape Framed Vintage Original Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed.
Category

1950s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique Impressionist European Harbor Signed Original Framed Coast Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique European impressionist harbor oil painting. Oil on board, circa 1920. Signed. Framed. Image size, 15"L x 18"H.
Category

1920s Impressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Untitled, 57-10" Stephen Pace, Dynamic, Vibrant Orange, Abstract Expressionism
Located in New York, NY
Stephen Pace Untitled, 57-10, 1957 Signed and dated lower right Oil on canvas 47 x 38 inches Born in Charleston, Missouri, Stephen Pace grew up in Indiana, where his parents operat...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Untitled
Located in Austin, TX
Waterline Fine Art, Austin, TX is pleased to present the following work: Oil on canvas. Unsigned. 63 x 51.25 in. 64.5 x 52.5 in. (framed) Custom framed in an ebonized solid walnu...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Untitled
By Richard Pousette-Dart
Located in Miami, FL
Acrylic on masonite. This is a pivotal work in deep and radiant cobalt blue from 1950. It dipicts calligraphic and hieroglyph structures over a grid and pyramidal base by the first generation abstract expressionist. Provenance: Skinner: November 13, 1992 [Lot 00219}, The entry in the Skinner catalog indicates that the painting came directly from the artist to the family of the consignor to Skinner. Kaminsky Auctions. There is an unbroken paper trail that traces the ownership of the painting from the current owner, through two auction houses to the artist. Perfect unbroken provenance. Pousette-Dart was among the most inventive of the Abstract Expressionist generation, His uncanny talent was to expand the nature of abstraction and still make each mark each element very much his own; a reflection of what he called   "the concealed power of the spirit," he said, “not of the brute physical form."   His was not aiming for a singular, realized aesthetic formula but to expand the possibilities of painting; the transcendental in painting. Typical of such invention and exploration is this  painting  Untitled 1950 when the artist was only 34 years old and represented by one of the champions of the new American painting, Betty Parsons.  
A banner year for Pousette-Dart, the Museum of Modern Art acquired their first painting by the Minnesota born artist.  He worked on easel size works such as this painting an oil on masonite. At the same time Pousette-Dart was also working on larger scale works such as Path of the Hero, running over ten feet in length now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Both contain fields of color articulated by a highly sophisticated white hieroglyphic vocabulary. Rather than demonstrate an expressionist sensibility, Pousette-Dart harnesses his more cerebral ideas transforming thick areas of paint into a more refined composition of geometric forms akin to the pattern and forms of say a stained glass window. In a way he is looking back at Fugue, 1940 a black and white composition which makes use of a similar format of painting albeit smaller. Color and form are minimal, but what Pousette-Dart has maximized is the rhythmic and syncopated character of painting casting his ideas into purely symbolic terms that one might link to the pictograms of Adolph Gottlieb. Nonetheless, nature is always at the core of Pousette-Dart’s thinking and dreaming. Here he has transformed the local Ramapo Mountains—where he will eventually move with his family to live and work— into a complex series of articulated fragments linked by style, scale and color.  The painting’s imagery built on two large triangles and reduced to just two colors, cobalt blue and white all outlined in black.  Pousette-Dart symbols stacked in horizontal and vertical rows:  blue is ground, white is language, symbolic of light, consciousness and awareness . The painting maintains a mystical character images compounded that formulate a secret code and linked to the series of white paintings Pousette-Dart authored in the first half of the 1950s. Get up close to the picture and you discover images within images a kind of picture puzzle...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Masonite, Acrylic

Antique American School Signed Modernist Abstract Coastal Harbor Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Very nicely painted American modernist harbor oil painting. Framed. Oil on board. Signed. Image size, 16H by 20L.
Category

1950s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

'Consort', Modernist Equestrian Gouache, AIC, WPA artist, Benezit
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower right, 'Buk' for Eduard Buk Ulreich (American, 1889-1966); additionally titled verso 'Consort' and dated 1954 with inscription, 'by the one and only buk, made for Ruth'....
Category

1950s Art Deco Abstract Paintings

Materials

Gouache, Illustration Board, Tempera

1960s Bay Area Landscape Blue Mountains
Located in Arp, TX
Thelma Corbin Moody Blue Mountains c. 1960's Gouache on Arches Paper 19 1/4" x 24 3/4", Unframed Unsigned Lovely, mid century gouache painting, b...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Paper, Gouache

American School Signed Framed Fauvist Abstract Modernist Cloudscape Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist signed abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Image size, 36L x 31H.
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Red Idol 2 - Scottish 1959 Abstract Expressionist art oil painting
Located in London, GB
This superb Abstract Expressionist Scottish oil painting is by noted artist William Gear. It was painted in 1959 and is entitled Red Idol 2. This abstract com...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil

Surreal Nudes Female Figurative painting by Mury
Located in Douglas Manor, NY
3809 Floating world surreal figurative painting signed on verso Mury
Category

1950s Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil

RARE 1950’s Avante-Garde FEMALE American Abstract Expressionist painting
Located in New York, NY
Here I have for sale a rare Avant-Garde painting by Minna Wright Citron (October 15, 1896 – December 21, 1991). She was wife of the famous social realist Bernard Koopman. Reginald Marsh and Raphael Soyer. She moved on to start teaching in the early 1950’s Abstract...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

John Hatch American Cubist Abstract Oil Painting 1950's Mid C Black and White
Located in Buffalo, NY
An original oil on board painting by American modernist John W. Hatch. This incredible cubist painting was created in the 1950's. Estate stamped on the reverse. The painting com...
Category

1950s Cubist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique French Art Deco Blue Resting Dancers Figurative Oil by G.Pascal Rocca
Located in Douglas Manor, NY
1-4086 A large scale vintage figurative painting, original oil on canvas in shades of blue .Unframed. Signed on verso G.Pascal Rocca
Category

1920s Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil

'West Side, New York', Central Park, Manhattan Modernist Abstract, BMFA, Harvard
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower left, 'Stoltenberg' for Donald Hugo Stoltenberg (American, 1927-2016) and dated 1957. Titled, verso on original artist's label, 'West Side, New York'. Provenance: Mr. & ...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Vintage American Modernist Abstract Expressionist Framed Landscape Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist abstract landscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. No signature found.
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Abstract Composition in Pink and Black in Acrylic on Cardboard
Located in Soquel, CA
Abstract Composition in Pink and Black in Acrylic on Cardboard Dynamic abstract in black and pink by Honora Berg (American, 1897-1985). This piece is composed of multiple layers, with bright, bold colors at the bottom, building to black on top. Pink, magenta, yellow, and orange shine through a net of black. Unsigned, but was acquired with a collection of the artist's work. Estate stamp on verso "Estate of Honora Berg - Miller Fine Art" Numbered "246" on verso Unframed. Art size: 21.25"H x 14"W Honora Berg (American, 1897-1985) was an Abstract Expressionist and Bay Area Figurative School artist who studied at the San Francisco Art Institute with David Park, Elmer Bischoff and James Budd Dixon. Berg's friend Edith Truesdell — David Park's aunt — suggested a move to California in 1951 to study under Park. She exhibited at the 25th Annual Drawing, Print and Sculpture Exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1961. Provenance, Estate of Honora Berg - David Carlson Gallery, Larry Miller...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Cardboard, Acrylic

Original Abstract Paintings for Sale on 1stDibs

Bring audacious experiments with color and textures to your living room, dining room or home office. Abstract paintings, large or small, will stand out in your space, encouraging conversation and introducing a museum-like atmosphere that’s welcoming and conducive to creating memorable gatherings.

Abstract art has origins in 19th-century Europe, but it came into its own as a significant movement during the 20th century. Early practitioners of abstraction included Wassily Kandinsky, although painters were exploring nonfigurative art prior to the influential Russian artist’s efforts, which were inspired by music and religion. Abstract painters endeavored to create works that didn’t focus on the outside world’s conventional subjects, and even when artists depicted realistic subjects, they worked in an abstract mode to do so.

In 1940s-era New York City, a group of painters working in the abstract mode created radical work that looked to European avant-garde artists as well as to the art of ancient cultures, prioritizing improvisation, immediacy and direct personal expression. While they were never formally affiliated with one another, we know them today as Abstract Expressionists.

The male contingent of the Abstract Expressionists, which includes Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell, is frequently cited in discussing leading figures of this internationally influential postwar art movement. However, the women of Abstract Expressionism, such as Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell and others, were equally involved in the art world of the time. Sexism, family obligations and societal pressures contributed to a long history of their being overlooked, but the female Abstract Expressionists experimented vigorously, developed their own style and produced significant bodies of work.

Draw your guests into abstract oil paintings across different eras and countries of origin. On 1stDibs, you’ll find an expansive range of abstract paintings along with a guide on how to arrange your wonderful new wall art.

If you’re working with a small living space, a colorful, oversize work can create depth in a given room, but there isn’t any need to overwhelm your interior with a sprawling pièce de résistance. Colorful abstractions of any size can pop against a white wall in your living room, but if you’re working with a colored backdrop, you may wish to stick to colors that complement the decor that is already in the space. Alternatively, let your painting make a statement on its own, regardless of its surroundings, or group it, gallery-style, with other works.

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