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Modern Abstract Paintings

MODERN STYLE

The first decades of the 20th century were a period of artistic upheaval, with modern art movements including Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism and Dadaism questioning centuries of traditional views of what art should be. Using abstraction, experimental forms and interdisciplinary techniques, painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers and performance artists all pushed the boundaries of creative expression.

Major exhibitions, like the 1913 Armory Show in New York City — also known as the “International Exhibition of Modern Art,” in which works like the radically angular Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp caused a sensation — challenged the perspective of viewers and critics and heralded the arrival of modern art in the United States. But the movement’s revolutionary spirit took shape in the 19th century.

The Industrial Revolution, which ushered in new technology and cultural conditions across the world, transformed art from something mostly commissioned by the wealthy or the church to work that responded to personal experiences. The Impressionist style emerged in 1860s France with artists like Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Edgar Degas quickly painting works that captured moments of light and urban life. Around the same time in England, the Pre-Raphaelites, like Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, borrowed from late medieval and early Renaissance art to imbue their art with symbolism and modern ideas of beauty.

Emerging from this disruption of the artistic status quo, modern art went further in rejecting conventions and embracing innovation. The bold legacy of leading modern artists Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian and many others continues to inform visual culture today.

Find a collection of modern paintings, sculptures, prints and other fine art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Modern
Period: 1920s
Composition 20 - Original Painting by Clément Kons - 1920s
Located in Roma, IT
Composition 20 is an original painting realized by Clément Kons (1879-1956). The artwork is on tempera, in very good conditions and mounted on a cardboard (49x34). Image Dimension...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Tempera

Antique American School Modernist Marine Animal Portrait Abstract Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American school modernist painting. Very well done and an usual subject! Oil on board. Framed. No signature found.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, 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

Antique American Modernist WPA Mural Study Signed Framed Original Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist signed mural study oil painting. Oil on board. Signed. Framed.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Hiddensee, Herbst (Autumn)" Hans Hofmann, Modern German Abstract Landscape
Located in New York, NY
Hans Hofmann Hiddensee, Herbst (Autumn), 1927 Signed with initials and dated lower left; titled on the reverse Oil on paper 18 x 22 inches Provenance: John Adams Fine Art, London Pr...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Paper, Oil

Composition 22 - Original Painting by Clément Kons - 1920s
Located in Roma, IT
Composition 22 is an original painting realized by Clément Kons (1879-1956). The artwork is on tempera, in very good conditions and mounted on a cardboard (42x52). Image Dimension...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Tempera

Monogrammed 1925 Pointillist Landscape Modernist Framed Original Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique modernist signed pointillist painting. Watercolor and gouache on paper. Signed. Framed. Rare early work!
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique Signed European Framed Village Signed Orientalist Original Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Vintage modernist abstract village painting. Oil on board. Housed in a period frame. Image size, 24L x 12H. Signed.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Composition 16 - Painting by Clément Kons - 1920s
Located in Roma, IT
Composition 16 is an original painting realized by Clément Kons (1879-1956). The artwork is on tempera and in very good conditions. Image Dimensions: 32...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Tempera

Pabhobecne
Located in Wien, 9
The avant-garde artist Vladimir Sterligov created his own system of forms and symbols here. These, as well as his other constructions, deal with non-representational reality. The two...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Composition 15 - Painting by Clément Kons - 1920s
Located in Roma, IT
Composition 15 is an original painting realized by Clément Kons (1879-1956). The artwork is on tempera and in very good conditions. Image Dimensions: 48...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Tempera

Antique American Modernist New York City Street Scene Abstract Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist signed original oil painting. Oil on canvas, circa 1930. Signed illegibly. Image size 20L x 16H. Housed in a period giltwood frame.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Morningside Park, New York - Cathedral of St. John the Divine
By Lucille Corcos
Located in Miami, FL
Corcos paints what appears to be the northern part Central Park from an elevated view looking northwest. The artist used a restricted palette of warm browns and grays with heavy outl...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Masonite, Oil

Composition 14 - Painting by Clément Kons - 1920s
Located in Roma, IT
Composition 14 is an original painting realized by Clément Kons (1879-1956). The artwork is on tempera and in very good conditions. Image Dimensions: 47...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Tempera

Composition 18 - Original Painting by Clément Kons - 1920s
Located in Roma, IT
Composition 18 is an original painting realized by Clément Kons (1879-1956). The artwork is on tempera and in very good conditions. Image Dimensions: 36...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Tempera

Composition 9 - Painting by Clément Kons - 1920s
Located in Roma, IT
Composition 9 is a painting realized by Clément Kons (1879-1956). The artwork is on tempera and in very good conditions. Image Dimensions: 43.5x31 cm. ...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Tempera

Waterfall (Woodstock, New York)
Located in Concord, MA
GRACE HILL TURNBULL (1880-1976) Waterfall (Woodstock, New York), c. 1925 Oil on canvas 14 x 20 inches Unsigned PROVENANCE The Maryland Historical Society The work of pai...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Yours Truly
Located in New York, NY
Yours Truly is a work of 1927, a fertile year for Dove, capped by a solo exhibit at Stieglitz’s “The Intimate Gallery,” which included this picture. From 1924 through 1930, Dove produced a notable series of collages, interspersed with drawings, pastels, and oil paintings on a variety of supports. In 1927, the same year that Dove painted Yours Truly, he found inspiration in American popular music, often referring in his titles to works by George Gershwin and Irving Berlin. Yours Truly was the title of a Broadway musical that opened at the Shubert Theater on January 25, 1927. Gene Buck, the producer, had collaborated with Raymond Hubbell, the composer, on the Ziegfield Follies shows of 1923, 1924, and 1925. The production, which contained the title song, “Yours Truly,” ran for 127 performances, closing on May 14, 1927. Given the context of Dove paintings...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

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Large Abstract landscape of Jerusalem Israeli Oil Painting Judaica
Located in Surfside, FL
Large gilt framed abstract modernist landscape of Jerusalem. Framed it measures 33.25 X 41.25 inches. Canvas measures 28 x 36 inches. Bold Blue sky. Avraham Binder was born in 1906 in Vilnius (or Vilna), now part of Lithuania. He began painting at an early age and completed the prescribed studies in painting at the academy of arts in his native city. Upon graduation, at the commencement exhibition of works submitted by the graduates, he was awarded a prize in recognition of his talents. Artistic talent had deep roots in the Binder family. Avraham's father and grandfather were both artistically inclined, as was his sister Zila Binder and daughter Yael. In fact, he came from a long line of master artistic bookbinders, hence the family surname. The Binder family emigrated to Palestine in 1920. There, his father established a bookbinding workshop in Tel-Aviv while Avraham pursued painting. Binder has not identified with any particular modern school nor narrow artistic doctrine. He struggles to verbally explain his personal conception. Instead, he derives inspiration from emotions, resulting in a great variety of artistic treatments. Particularly memorable are his urban landscapes with their predominance of blues and aquamarines, composed of a profusion of squares and rectangles, crowding one another and covering nearly the entire canvas. The angular shapes are interspersed with radiant dots of red, gold and yellow, like the lights of the big city. Those squares and rectangles reflect, perhaps, impressions of a childhood spent among books which were scattered about the home and workshop of his father, the bookbinder. These shapes, no doubt, had their influence upon the artist whose first youthful impressions were – books. Traces of these shapes are discernible in Binder’s work to this day, in the angularity of splashes of color which, no longer crowded together, are now well separated to create an airy spaciousness. Not only the splashes of color – the inventing space, too – creates figurative effects in the artist’s treatment. Avraham Binder is not a “cerebral” painter. Neither identified with any particular modern school, nor preaching any narrow artistic doctrine, he is an emotional artist: his inspiration, derived from the heart, leads him on to the most varied range of treatments in his artistic work. In vain might one try to persuade him to define his personal conception of painting. He is not one to indulge in verbal explanation. But his sheer artistic skill, his virtuosity with the paint brush, did impel him to experiment widely with the artistic techniques of the modern age. And his exceptional talent stood him in good stead in all this experimentation. Binders large-scale urban landscapes are not mere constructs to represent our present-day architecture with its pervasive angularity. Made up as they are of color, Binder’s unique color composition qualifies these canvases to be ranked among the foremost artistic works in Israeli painting. They are uniquely Binder, very different from what we see in the work of his contemporaries. Here and there, Binder also introduces the human element into these paintings. He lives and breathes the atmosphere of his surroundings, deeply experiencing the sea and the shore of Tel-Aviv that confront him day after day, and which he has transferred to his canvases, as metaphors in paint, throughout the life. More recently, he has created a new series of shore-and-seascapes, in tones ranging from brown to blue. ochre, violet and pale yellow – marvelous views of the sea and of figures enlivening its shore. In yet another series, featuring nearly the same range of hues, he lets us view, through his eyes, the Carmel Market in Tel-Aviv, or the city’s coffee houses with their crowds of people, heads bunched together as if in search of human closeness, with the windows looking in upon them. He has also done large paintings of Jerusalem...
Category

20th Century Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

1950 Vintage Mid-Century Swedish Abstract Landscape Oil Painting - Garden Plot
Located in Bristol, GB
GARDEN PLOT Size: 56.5 x 73.5 cm (including frame) Oil on Canvas A vibrant and richly textured mid-century composition in oil, painted onto canvas and dated 1950. In this compositi...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Old Port Marseille
Located in London, GB
'The Old Port Marseille', oil on canvas, by Françoise Pirró (circa 1970s-80s). The way the artist employs her thick brush strokes and palette knife wit...
Category

1970s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Central City, Colorado, 1950s Modernist Cityscape Oil Painting with Buildings
Located in Denver, CO
Oil on canvas modernist city scape painted circa 1950 by Paul K Smith (1893-1977) titled Central City, Colorado. Portrays a city scene of historic buildin...
Category

1950s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

1963 Vintage Mid-Century Abstract Seascape Oil Painting - Coastal Thunderstorm
Located in Bristol, GB
COASTAL THUNDERSTORM Size: 52.5 x 70 cm (including frame) Oil on Canvas An emotive and wonderfully executed mid-century abstract artwork, painted in oil onto canvas and dated 1963. ...
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1960s Modern Abstract Paintings

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Under The Sea Series Nº 24. Úbeda. Oil fantasy underwater green landscape
Located in Segovia, ES
Under The Sea Series Nº 24. Oil on paper. Fantasy underwater abstract landscape. Green color. Transparencies effect. Measurements: (H) 30 cm. / 1...
Category

2010s Modern Abstract Paintings

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"Rail Crossing: Middletown, NY"
Located in New York, NY
This beautiful oil on linen canvas painting, entitled "Rail Crossing: Middletown, was executed by the esteemed artist Jules Halfant (American, 1909-2001)...
Category

1940s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Two Ladies Trying to Out-Mystify Each Other, Semi Abstract Figural Oil Painting
Located in Denver, CO
'Two Ladies Trying to Out-Mystify Each Other', Original 1969 semi-abstract cubist style oil painting portraying two female figures with still life. Figural abstraction, oil paint on ...
Category

1960s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Feathers, Mystical and Spiritual Commentary by Female Modernist
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Feathers" is a 30 x 40 inches, oil on canvas painting by American modernist and surrealist, female artist Peter Miller. The work is painted in a vibrant color palette. The work is s...
Category

1970s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Dance of Salome, Abstracted Figural Framed Triptych, 1960s Oil Paintings
Located in Denver, CO
The Dance of Salome or the Dance of the Seven Veils is a Triptych painted in 3 panels in oil on board. Each panel depicts a semi-abstract, cubist style individual figure: Herod, Herodias and Salome. Painted in bright colors of yellow, orange, red, green, fuchsia, purple, pink, white, blue, black and brown. Presented in vintage frames, framed dimensions of each panel measure 29 x 17 x 1 ½ inches, Image size is 23 ½ x 12 ¼ inches, each. Overall dimensions of the triptych measure 29 x 53 ½ x 1 ½ inches as displayed with 1 inch spacing between each panel. Based on the Dance of Seven Veils in which Princess Salome danced...
Category

1960s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Large 1960 California "Abstract Landscape" Jack Stuck Painting
Located in Arp, TX
Jack Stuck (1925-1993) "Abstract Landscape" 1960 Collage oil paint, charcoal, paper and canvas laid down on masonite 48"x46" natural wood frame 51" x 49" Si...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Masonite, Charcoal, Oil, Laid Paper

Previously Available Items
Vintage American Modernist Abstract Still Life Cubist Wine Bottle Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist abstract still life oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. No signature found. Early American modernist still life with great colors and perspective.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Vintage American Modernist Interior Scene Heavy Impasto Framed Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Vintage American modernist interior scene oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Portrait of Laura Bunnell, 1920s Framed Semi Abstract Figurative Oil Painting
Located in Denver, CO
Untitled (Portrait of Laura Bunnell) is an oil on board painting by Lloyd Moylan (1893-1963) from 1929. Presented in a custom gold frame, outer dimensions measure 29 ¼ x 29 ⅛ x 1 ¾ i...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American Modernist Abstract Landscape Original Landscape Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas, circa 1930. Unsigned. Image size 42.5L x 18.5H.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American Modernist Subtle Nature Study Landscape Framed Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Vintage American modernist landscape oil painting. Oil on board, circa 1930. Unsigned. Framed. Image size, 20"L x 24"H.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American Modernist Nude Woman Bather Portrait Rare Abstract Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist signed original oil painting of nude bathers. Oil on canvas, circa 1930. Signed illegibly. Image size 28L x 22H. Housed in a period frame.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American Modernist Corn Still Life Signed Vintage Original Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist signed original corn still life oil painting. Oil on canvas, circa 1930. Signed illegibly. Image size 20L x 9H. Housed in a period giltwood frame.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Organ Player, American School Cubist Interior Abstract Original Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American school modernist interior painting of a musician at work. Oil on board, circa 1930. Unsigned. Image size, 22L x 27H. Housed in a period frame.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique French Modernist Paris School Harbor Boat View Original Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique French modern painting. Oil on canvas, circa 1930. Unsigned. Image size, 30L x 22H. Housed in a period giltwood frame.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American School Modernist Art Deco Landscape Abstract Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American school art deco landscape oil painting. Oil on board, circa 1920. Signed. Displayed in a wood frame. Image, 18"L x 24"H.
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Composition 8 - Original Painting by Clément Kons - 1920s
Located in Roma, IT
Composition 8 is an original painting realized by Clément Kons (1879-1956). The artwork is on tempera and in very good conditions. Image Dimensions: 26...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Tempera

Composition 11 - Original Painting by Clément Kons - 1920s
Located in Roma, IT
Composition 11 is an original painting realized by Clément Kons (1879-1956). The artwork is on tempera and in very good conditions and mounted on a cardboard (56x38). Image Dimensi...
Category

1920s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Tempera

Modern abstract paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Modern abstract paintings 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 abstract paintings 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, red, pink and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Stanley Bate, Christel Haag, Clarence Holbrook Carter, and Carmen Gutierrez. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Oil Paint and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Modern abstract paintings, so small editions measuring 18 inches across are also available. Prices for abstract paintings 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 $380 and tops out at $175,000, while the average work sells for $2,970.

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