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Figurative Paintings

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Figurative Paintings For Sale
Period: 1950s
Period: 1940s
Reading a love letter oil on canvas painting woman portrait
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Antoni Vidal Rolland (1889-1970) - Reading a love letter - Oil on canvas Oil measures 55x46 cm. Frame measures 76x67 cm. Disciple of José Ruiz Blasco in Lonja and of Aleix Clapés. H...
Category

1940s Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Untitled, Watercolour on Paper by Modern Artist Suhas Roy "In Stock"
Located in Kolkata, West Bengal
Suhas Roy - Untitled Watercolour on Paper, 11 x 15 inches, 1954 ( Unframed & Delivered ) Suhas Roy 's mystic woman which he calls 'Radha', either Oil on canvas or soft colored past...
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Bay Area Abstract Expressionist Fauvist Oil on Paper Honora Berg Berkeley 1959
Located in Soquel, CA
Bay Area Abstract Expressionist Fauvist Oil on Paper Honora Berg Berkeley 1959 San Francisco Bay area abstract expressionist painting by Honora Berg (American, 1897-1985).A brilliant fauvist example of the melting pot of colors Honora Berg creates. Splashes of red over hues of blue with bright canary yellow swirls and patches. Estate stamp on verso "Estate of Honora Berg - Miller Fine Art" Unframed. 30"H x 22"W. Larry Miller 1958-2003, Larry was a specialist in bay area abstract artists and purchased numerous bay area artists estates. He purchased the entirety of the Honora Berg Estate and we purchased many of those works directly form Larry. Honora Berg, an Abstract Expressionist and Bay Area Figurative School artist, studied at the San Francisco Art Institute with David Park, Elmer Bischoff and James Budd Dixon...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Archival Paper, Oil

Nocturnal portrait
Located in Genève, GE
Work on canvas Gray wooden frame, silver borders 100 x 80 x 6 cm
Category

1940s Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

woman in white oil on canvas painting portrait
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Ignasi Mundó Marcet (1918-2012) - woman in white - Oil on canvas Canvas measures 73x60 cm. Frame size 76x63 cm. MUNDO Ignasi Ignasi Mundó trained at the School of La Lonja, with Joa...
Category

1940s Fauvist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Boats by the river Oil on cardboard, 47.5x80 cm
Located in Riga, LV
Boats by the river Oil on cardboard, 47.5x80 cm The main focus of the artwork is a fauvistic stylized landscape featuring boats by the river. The artist's intention is to convey the landscape in bold and vivid earth tones, characteristic of the fauvist style. Biruta Baumane...
Category

1950s Fauvist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Cardboard

Portrait of a fisherman, Volendam
Located in BLARICUM, NL
WILLEM VAN DE BERG Den Haag 1886-1970 Amsterdam Portrait of a fisherman, Volendam 1940 Oil on canvas 70 x 55 cm. Signed and dated: lower left ‘Willem van den Berg...
Category

1940s Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

Figurative Neutral-Toned Realistic Impressionist Portrait of a Man in a Suit
Located in Houston, TX
Neutral toned abstract impressionist portrait of a man wearing a suit by Danish artist Hans Christian Bärenholdt. Signed and dated by the artist at the bottom right. Currently hung i...
Category

1940s Naturalistic Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Self-Portrait of the Artist
Located in London, GB
'Self-Portrait of the Artist', oil on canvas, by Lilian E. Whitteker (1952). This may be the only self-portrait (or portrait) of Lilian Whitteker as her favourite subjects to paint w...
Category

1950s Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mid Century Golden Age of Illustration- Narrative Art - Norman Rockwell School
Located in Miami, FL
“Graduation Day” is emblematic of mid-century American Illustration. But the real story of this storytelling work is that it embodies the lost art of portrait painting and graphic design. Alex Ross borrows on the classical tradition and flaunts his skills as a narrative painter. In “Graduation Day”, he paints a complex composition involving at least thirteen portraits. The subjects are beautifully rendered and lit. They are set against a dark grey background and jump off the surface at the viewer. The composition is complexly designed. The future graduate in the red jacket engaging with a girl photographer is a compositional device that leads the viewer's eye to the main subject - a father congratulating his son on graduating from medical school. Creating art that relies on facial expressions and body gestures is a talent absent in contemporary art. Why? It’s very hard to do and takes years and training and practice to get it right. Despite Alex Ross's folksy subject matter, this work is a high example of naturalism and representation by an important member of the Golden Age of American Illustration. Signed lower right Born in the town of Dunfermline, Scotland, Alexander Sharpe Ross (1908-1990) moved with his family to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1911. After attending Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University), Ross moved to New York and joined the Charles E. Cooper Studio, where he worked among such notable illustrators as Ward Brackett, Stevan Dohanos, J. Frederick Smith...
Category

1940s Figurative Paintings

Materials

Gouache

Pieta
Located in BLARICUM, NL
Spirituality and Christianity played an important role for Hamstra in, as he put it himself, 'the making' of his artworks. combined, he wanted to create a powerful, almost ghostly sa...
Category

1950s Symbolist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Wax Crayon

Love Honor Obey?
Located in Phoenix, AZ
Love Honor Obey? Lon Megargee ca. 1940 Oil on Board Size: 19.75 x 26.75 inches Frame: 26.75 x 33.75 inches signed lower right Painting is framed Creator...
Category

1940s American Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

Rowdy Mexican Cantina Brawl with Beer, Men, Guns & Knives
Located in Rancho Santa Fe, CA
Oil on canvas board. Framed
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas, Board

Bathers at the Quarry 1940s American Modernist Oil Painting WPA era
By Theresa Berney Loew
Located in Surfside, FL
Swimmers and sun tanners at the local watering hole. Her birth name was Theresa Berney. At the time of her passing she was known as Theresa Loew. Birth place: Baltimore artist, blo...
Category

1940s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

1950's Mid Century French Modernism Abandoned Fiat Automobile Art Oil Painting
Located in Surfside, FL
Jean Porcher, French, 1927, La vieille 'Fiat abandonnée', Oil on canvas modernist painting Provenance: verso gallery label "Galerie Drouant-David St Honore Paris" Hand signed and dated verso and along top to upper left 19 3/4 x 29, framed 22 x 31 1/2 It depicts an antique abandoned Italian Fiat car...
Category

1950s Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

The laundry is drying 1950s, oil on cardboard, 51x74 cm
Located in Riga, LV
The laundry is drying 1950s, oil on cardboard, 51x74 cm Published in the book "Biruta Baumane", Anda Treija, Juris Petraškevičs, publisher Galerija Da...
Category

1950s Fauvist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Cardboard

Portrait of a Balinese beauty by Theo Meier (1908-1982)
Located in ZEIST, UT
After his academy Theo Meier moved to Germany where he came into contact with Max Liebermann and German expressionists from Die Brücke. Inspired by Paul Gauguin, he left for Tahiti at the age of 24. The influence of Paul Gauguin and the German Expressionists can be clearly seen in his works. After a year in Tahiti, he moved toBali where he found the culture and art that he had missed in Tahiti. He settled in Sanur and befriended the other artists who had settled in Bali, such as Rudolf Bonnet, Walter Spies, Antonio Blanco...
Category

1940s Expressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

Les Masons
Located in New York, NY
This elegant and sophisticated oil painting was realized by an underrecognized (but extraordinary) Flemish painter named F.V. Sliches in 1946. Entitled Les Masons (or the masons), th...
Category

1940s Realist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

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

1940s Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

Vintage Mid-Century Framed Figurative Oil Painting - Double Sided Portrait I
Located in Bristol, GB
DOUBLE SIDED PORTRAIT I Size: 48 x 30cm unframed Oil on board An intriguing double sided oil on board: one side depicts a pair of women looking into a book, and the other side featu...
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Exotic Landscape - Painting by Kabemba Situna WA - 1970s
Located in Roma, IT
Exotic Landscape is an artwork realized by Kabemba Situna WA in 1970s. Acrylic on Canvas 58.5 x 38 cm ; 85.5 x 65.5 cm. Good conditions!
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Spanish landscape oil on canvas painting european art xx century
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Rafael Durancamps (1891-1979) - Landscape - Oil on canvas Oil measures 38x46 cm. Frame measures 58x66 cm. Rafael Durancamps i Folguera (Sabadell, March 29, 1891 [1] - Barcelona, Jan...
Category

1950s Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

“Jest a Hornblower”
By Roy M. Steinberg
Located in Southampton, NY
Very beautiful oil on masonite painting by the American mid century modern artist Roy M. Steinberg. Signed lower left. Circa 1955. Condition is very good; no issues. A jester blowi...
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Masonite, Oil

MADELEINE (ORIGINAL GOUCHE)
Located in Aventura, FL
Unique, one of a kind original gouache on paper from Harper's Bazar series. Hand signed lower front by Erte; titled top front with studio catalog number on verso. Sheet size 10.7...
Category

1950s Art Deco Figurative Paintings

Materials

Gouache

Neoclassical Head in profile
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Neoclassical Head in profile Watercolor and graphite on paper, 1950 Signed and dated lower left in ink (see photo) Provenance: Washington, D.C. priva...
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Watercolor

Mid-Century Modern Swedish Figurative Oil Painting - Coastal Dock, Framed
Located in Bristol, GB
COASTAL DOCK Size: 45 x 49.5 cm (including frame) Oil on board A vibrant and expressive mid-century figurative painting, executed in oil onto board. The composition depicts a bustl...
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

At cafe 1950, cardboard, oil, 51x71 cm
Located in Riga, LV
At cafe 1950, cardboard, oil, 51x71 cm The main focus of the artwork is a stylized representation of a cafe scene. The artist's intention is to capture the vibrant and lively atmosphere of a bustling cafe setting. The painting features numerous figures dancing in the background, creating a sense of movement and excitement. The artist's stylized approach involves using bold and expressive brushstrokes, vibrant colors, and abstracted forms to depict the figures and the overall energy of the scene. In the foreground, there is a man sitting behind a table with wine bottles, adding a focal point to the composition. The red interior of the cafe provides a warm and inviting ambiance, adding to the overall atmosphere of the painting. Biruta Baumane...
Category

1950s Fauvist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Cardboard, Oil

Untitled (Lucifer and His Chariot)
Located in Lawrence, NY
Mixed Media on Paper Never afraid of trying new styles, curious and opinionated, constantly engaged with the world around him, Rolph Scarlett more than once proved to be at the arti...
Category

1940s Surrealist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media

Fiocchetto - Oil Pastels on Paper by Elica Balla - 1940s
Located in Roma, IT
Fiocchetto is an artwork realized by Elica Balla (Rome,1914 - 1993) Hand signed lower right. Hand signed and titled o rear. Good conditions!
Category

1940s Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil Pastel, Paper

Barcelona Spain oil on canvas spanish urbanscape
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Oil measures 50x61 cm. Frameless. Signed down on the left. restored.
Category

1950s Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Small Nude / - Abstract Figurativity -
Located in Berlin, DE
Gustl Stark (1917 Mainz - 2009 ibid.), Small Nude, 1946. Oil on canvas, marouflaged, 54 x 25 cm (picture), 30 x 60 cm (frame), signed "Stark" top left, verso twice signed "Gustav Stark", inscribed by hand as "Small Nude" and dated by hand "1946". With label of the exhibition of the Bundeshaus Bonn from 1956. - Rubbed area in the lower third of the body, at the same level a retouch in the ochre background. I provisional frame. - Abstract Figurativity - About the artwork During the war, Gustl Stark suffered a particularly severe blow for an artist: he lost his right arm. Nevertheless, he continued to devote himself to art, and the painting, created in 1946, immediately after the end of the Nazi reign of terror, testifies to the dawn of a new era. At the same time, the work is a rare example of the artist's early figurative work, as Stark turned entirely to abstract painting as early as 1950. And even this painting is by no means purely figurative; rather, it already illustrates Stark's turn toward abstraction. We see a female nude, but one that remains faceless. This can be read symbolically and in relation to the immediate past epoch, which, in the face of horrors, silences and blinds - literally renders faceless. In this sense, the figure is positioned to 'look back'. But she does not look. While this meaning may resonate and make the painting an important work of the immediate postwar period, Gustl Stark is primarily concerned with something else here, namely art itself. The absence of the face leads to the body becoming something flat. Due to the de-individualization, we do not see a concrete person with his individual features, but a body surface. And indeed, the body is constructed through an extremely planar design. Even the contour lines that form the corporeality have a planar rather than a linear character, especially where they merge into shadow zones of almost the same color. And the surfaces themselves are not modeled. The incarnate parts do not show any plastic gradations; the corporeality is completely withdrawn into the plane, which is also true for the hair. In addition, there is no uniform background against which the figure could appear; rather, the area next to the hair is kept bluish, creating a succession of earth-toned colored areas, which again binds the figure to the surface. Last but not least, the flatness is also forced by the painting technique. Gustl Stark paints directly, a la prima, onto the coarse canvas, whereby the structure of the painting support remains visible in the picture, and in places - around the hair, for example - the canvas itself can be seen. This structural all-over lends the picture a certain flatness. Gustl Stark thus uses the very motif that stands for the corporeality of art par excellence - the female nude - to transform the spatiality of the traditional picture into a flatness characteristic of modern art. And yet, a strong impression of corporeality is created, without being produced by a painterly modeling of the body. The oscillation between flatness and corporeality creates the intense tension of this groundbreaking painting. In Gustl Stark's oeuvre, as a consequence of the abstraction we see here, the figurative is completely stripped away in a further step, which is also a loss when looking at this early key work. About the artist Gustl Stark was the son of a woodcarver and, after an apprenticeship as a decorative painter, attended the State School of Arts and Crafts in Mainz from 1936 to 1937. Although he was severely wounded in the war and lost his right arm, he studied at the Würzburg School of Painting and Drawing from 1943-1944 and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg from 1944-1948. He won a state scholarship at the state art competition in Bad Ischl. Numerous study trips to Sylt, Paris, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Holland and Belgium followed. Gustl Stark worked in Mainz and was the first artist there to focus on abstract painting. His work quickly gained international recognition, including the Salon Réaliés Nouvelles in Paris. From 1963-1970 he taught at the State University Institute for Art and Work Education in Mainz and from 1970-1975 at the Johannes Gutenberg University. Gustl Stark became particularly famous for his color embossed prints, for which he invented his own technique. Gustl Stark received numerous awards for his work. He received the Art Prize for Painting of the City of Mainz in 1962, the State Prize of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1984, and the Gutenberg Bust of the City of Mainz in 1987. Selected Bibliography Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler des XX. Jahrhunderts, Vierter Band, Leipzig 1958, S. 344. Hans H...
Category

1940s Realist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas

'Sketching Wisconsin' original oil painting, Signed
Located in Milwaukee, WI
John Steuart Curry "Sketching Wisconsin," 1946 oil on canvas 31.13 x 28 inches, canvas 39.75 x 36.75 x 2.5 inches, frame Signed and dated lower right Overall excellent condition Presented in a 24-karat gold leaf hand-carved wood frame John Steuart Curry (1897-1946) was an American regionalist painter active during the Great Depression and into World War II. He was born in Kansas on his family’s farm but went on to study art in Chicago, Paris and New York as young man. In Paris, he was exposed to the work of masters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Eugène Delacroix and Jacques-Louis David. As he matured, his work showed the influence of these masters, especially in his compositional decisions. Like the two other Midwestern regionalist artists that are most often grouped with him, Grant Wood (American, 1891-1942) and Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975), Curry was interested in representational works containing distinctly American subject matter. This was contrary to the popular art at the time, which was moving closer and closer to abstraction and individual expression. Sketching Wisconsin is an oil painting completed in 1946, the last year of John Steuart Curry’s life, during which time he was the artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The painting is significant in Curry’s body of work both as a very revealing self-portrait, and as a landscape that clearly and sensitively depicts the scenery of southern Wisconsin near Madison. It is also a portrait of the artist’s second wife, Kathleen Gould Curry, and is unique in that it contains a ‘picture within a picture,’ a compositional element that many early painting masters used to draw the eye of the viewer. This particular artwork adds a new twist to this theme: Curry’s wife is creating essentially the same painting the viewer is looking at when viewing Sketching Wisconsin. The triangular composition of the figures in the foreground immediately brings focus to a younger Curry, whose head penetrates the horizon line and whose gaze looks out towards the viewer. The eye then moves down to Mrs. Curry, who, seated on a folding stool and with her hand raised to paint the canvas on the easel before her, anchors the triangular composition. The shape is repeated in the legs of the stool and the easel. Behind the two figures, stripes of furrowed fields fall away gently down the hillside to a farmstead and small lake below. Beyond the lake, patches of field and forest rise and fall into the distance, and eventually give way to blue hills. Here, Curry has subverted the traditional artist’s self-portrait by portraying himself as a farmer first and an artist second. He rejects what he sees as an elitist art world of the East Coast and Europe. In this self-portrait he depicts himself without any pretense or the instruments of his profession and with a red tractor standing in the field behind him as if he was taking a break from the field work. Here, Curry’s wife symbolizes John Steuart Curry’s identity as an artist. Compared with a self-portrait of the artist completed a decade earlier, this work shows a marked departure from how the artist previously presented and viewed himself. In the earlier portrait, Curry depicted himself in the studio with brushes in hand, and with some of his more recognizable and successful canvases behind him. But in Sketching Wisconsin, Curry has taken himself out of the studio and into the field, indicating a shift in the artist’s self-conception. Sketching Wisconsin’s rural subject also expresses Curry’s populist ideals, that art could be relevant to anyone. This followed the broad educational objectives of UW’s artist-in-residence program. Curry was appointed to his position at the University of Wisconsin in 1937 and was the first person to hold any such position in the country, the purpose of which was to serve as an educational resource to the people of the state. He embraced his role at the University with zeal and not only opened the doors of his campus studio in the School of Agriculture to the community, but also spent a great deal of time traveling around the state of Wisconsin to visit rural artists who could benefit from his expertise. It was during his ten years in the program that Curry was able to put into practice his belief that art should be meaningful to the rural populace. However, during this time he also struggled with public criticism, as the dominant forces of the art market were moving away from representation. Perhaps it was Curry’s desire for public acceptance during the latter part of his career that caused him to portray himself as an Everyman in Sketching Wisconsin. Beyond its importance as a portrait of the artist, Sketching Wisconsin is also a detailed and sensitive landscape that shows us Curry’s deep personal connection to his environment. The landscape here can be compared to Wisconsin Landscape of 1938-39 (the Metropolitan Museum of Art), which presents a similar tableau of rolling hills with a patchwork of fields. Like Wisconsin Landscape, this is an incredibly detailed and expressive depiction of a place close to the artist’s heart. This expressive landscape is certainly the result of many hours spent sketching people, animals, weather conditions and topography of Wisconsin as Curry traveled around the state. The backdrop of undulating hills and the sweeping horizon, and the emotions evoked by it, are emphatically recognizable as the ‘driftless’ area of south-central Wisconsin. But while the Metropolitan’s Wisconsin Landscape conveys a sense of uncertainty or foreboding with its dramatic spring cloudscape and alternating bands of light and dark, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm and reflective mood. The colors of the foliage indicate that it is late summer and Curry seems to look out at the viewer approvingly, as if satisfied with the fertile ground surrounding him. The landscape in Sketching Wisconsin is also revealing of what became one of Curry’s passions while artist-in-residence at UW’s School of Agriculture – soil conservation. When Curry was a child in Kansas, he saw his father almost lose his farm and its soil to the erosion of The Dust Bowl. Therefore, he was very enthusiastic about ideas from UW’s School of Agriculture on soil conservation methods being used on Wisconsin farms. In Sketching Wisconsin, we see evidence of crop rotation methods in the terraced stripes of fields leading down the hillside away from the Curry’s and in how they alternate between cultivated and fallow fields. Overall, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm, reflective, and comfortably pastoral atmosphere, and the perceived shift in Curry’s self-image that is evident in the portrait is a positive one. After his rise to favor in the art world in the 1930’s, and then rejection from it due to the strong beliefs presented in his art, Curry is satisfied and proud to be farmer in this self-portrait. Curry suffered from high blood...
Category

1940s American Realist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Moments of Reflection Depicting a Woman Sitting by the Fire, Original Oil Paint
Located in Stockholm, SE
We are pleased to present a captivating painting by the artist Sam Uhrdin (1886-1964). This beautiful artwork depicts a woman from Dalarna, sitting in front of a warm, glowing fire. The entire painting is bathed in a soft, radiant light, particularly illuminating her face and traditional white/red attire. The woman appears contemplative, lost in thought, perhaps thinking of someone dear to her heart. She is depicted in a kitchen, taking a moment to relax after a day's chores in her home. Sam Uhrdin's artistic journey began in the early 1900s, he traveled to Stockholm in 1903 to further continue his studies in painting. He worked as a painter during the day and attended various evening schools in the evenings. In 1906, he journeyed to America to work as a sign painter, but he mainly ended up working as an upholsterer. Returning to Leksand in 1909 via London and Paris, his artistic talent gained recognition, and with the help of some patrons, he began studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1911, occasionally attending Althin's painting school in Stockholm. Financial circumstances cut his study time short, and his skill as a portrait painter earned him numerous portrait commissions, which further occupied his time. In 1921, Uhrdin received a scholarship from the Royal Academy, enabling him to embark on a study trip in 1922 to the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, which he had to cut short due to his wife's illness. He later visited places like Spain and Portugal. Uhrdin's breakthrough came with his portrait of the former Prime Minister Nils Edén, which he executed in 1919. In 1921, he portrayed the participants of the Swedish Academy. Among other representatives of official Sweden captured by Uhrdin were Gustav V, Manne Siegbahn, Ludvig Stavenow, and bishops Gottfrid and Einar Billing. In 1932, he held a solo exhibition at Konstnärshuset in Stockholm, and he participated in various exhibitions, including the Swedish Artists' Association in Stockholm in 1917, Swedish Art at Valand-Chalmers in Gothenburg in 1923, Dalarna Artists displayed at Liljevalchs Konsthall in 1936, and the National Museum's traveling exhibition "Barnet i konsten" (Children in Art...
Category

1940s Realist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Vintage Mid-Century Framed Figurative Oil Painting - Double Sided Portrait II
Located in Bristol, GB
DOUBLE SIDED PORTRAIT II Size: 48 x 30cm unframed Oil on board An intriguing double sided oil on board: one side depicts a pair of women looking into a book, and the other side feat...
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Aftermath
Located in Washington Depot,, CT
oil on masonite
Category

1950s Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Masonite, Oil

Antique American School Framed Exhibited Artist Sculpting Portrait Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American school artist portrait painting. Oil on board. Framed. Signed. Image size, 16L x 24H.4
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Wedding Day - Norman Rockwell Americana - Female Illustrator
Located in Miami, FL
Recently, women artists have been soaring in price to millions of dollars. In many cases, many of these women were quite obscure. For example, recently acknowledged Gertrude Abercrombie, a naive surrealist artist, has recently seen her paintings rise to the area of $400K. Lorraine Fox, who is a consummate female artist/ illustrator whose work rivals any of the recently anointed female stars is still an unknown quantity. She has exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum and is in the collection of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, and she is a member of the Famous Artists School in Westport, Connecticut along with Norman Rockwell, Today she is relatively unknown and completely off the radar of the so-called art establishment. Wedding Day is a wonderful example of her mid-century, somewhat naive style. The work is signed lower right and was exhibited at the Brandywine River...
Category

1940s Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

“Reclining Figures”
Located in Southampton, NY
Beautiful oil on canvas painting with aerosol spray paint of two reclining figures by the well known Russian/American artist, Nahum Tschacbasov. Signed upper right and dated 1949. ...
Category

1940s Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Vintage Mid-Century Modern Swedish Framed Figurative Painting - Seated Figures
Located in Bristol, GB
SEATED FIGURES Size: 47 x 38 cm (including frame) Watercolour and pastel on paper An outstanding mid-century figurative composition, executed in pastel and watercolour on paper. Pa...
Category

1950s Expressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil Pastel, Watercolor

Hanover, NH (Sailors by a Storefront)
Located in Chicago, IL
A "Thumb Box" (or diminutive) painting of sailors in Hanover, NH by Harold Haydon. Harold Emerson Haydon was born in Fort William, Ontario, Canad...
Category

1940s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

Twilight of History, Figurative American Modernist Oil Painting, Gold Green Red
Located in Denver, CO
"Twilight of History" is an original oil on board painting by Frederick Shane (1906-1992) from 1947. Shane's reflection of the twilight of our existence is shown with three creatures...
Category

1940s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Board, Oil

1950s "Yellow Cubist Figure" Abstract Figurative Painting
Located in Arp, TX
From the estate of Jerry Opper & Ruth Friedmann Opper Yellow Cubist FIgure c. 1940-1950's Gouache 15" x 18", silver wood frame 16"x19" Unsigned This striking gouache painting featur...
Category

1950s Cubist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Gouache

MALCHIK
Located in Santa Fe, NM
MALCHIK Evgeni Samsonov was born in 1926 in the city of Irkutsk, Siberia. Samsonov worked in the genre of “theme” painting and was a leading Social Realist, recognized for his superb painterly handling of anatomy. He made his artistic debut in 1951 and until his passing in 1988, participated in more than forty monumental art exhibitions in Russia and abroad. Evgeni Samsonov’s paintings can be seen at the museums of Russia. The artist’s works are included in private collections in Japan, France, Italy, England, Germany and Sweden. Since 1995, the Pushkin Gallery...
Category

1950s Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

City Street Scene, Damascus, Syria /// Orientalist Oil Painting Middle East
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: Unknown (European, Active Early - Mid 20th Century) (Orientalist School) Title: "City Street Scene, Damascus, Syria" *Signed illegibly lower left Circa: 1950 Medium: Original...
Category

1950s Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Paint, Oil, Wood Panel, Board, Panel

'Woman with Book', Louvre, Académie Chaumière, Carmel Post-Impressionist, LACMA
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower left, "Di Gesu" for Victor Di Gesu (American, 1914-1988), with estate stamp, verso, and painted circa 1955. Winner of the Prix Othon Friesz, Victor di Gesu first attend...
Category

1950s Post-Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Foam Board, Paper, Oil

Untitled
Located in Lawrence, NY
Gouache on sketchbook cover Estate of Sam Esses Never afraid of trying new styles, curious and opinionated, constantly engaged with the world around him, Rolph Scarlett more than on...
Category

1950s Surrealist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Gouache

"The Lamp Lighter" Texas Mid-Century Modern Everett Spruce (1908-2002) EXHIBITED
Located in San Antonio, TX
Everett Spruce (1908 - 2002) Austin Artist Image Size: 18 x 15 Frame Size: 28 x 25 Medium: Oil on paper / Mixed Exhibited at a University of Texas Faculty art show in 1947 Unsigned Biography Everett Spruce (1908 - 2002) The following, submitted by a researcher of the Ashworth Collection of Native American and Western Art, is from the artist's obituary in the Fort Smith, Arkansas "Times Record" newspaper, October 20, 2002. Everett F. Spruce, well-known artist, teacher, professor emeritus, died Friday, Oct. 18, 2002, at age 94. Everett Spruce was born on a farm in Conway to William E. and Fannie McCarty Spruce. He came to Dallas, at age 17, on a scholarship to study at the Dallas Art Institute, under Olin Travis and Thomas M. Stell Jr. In 1931, he became gallery assistant at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and in 1934 married Alice V. Kramer, a fellow art student. He was one of the "Dallas Nine" group of Southwest artists...
Category

1940s Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Oil

Untitled
Located in Barcelona, ES
Includes a Certificate of Authenticity.
Category

1950s Minimalist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Paper, Mixed Media

Deer Dance, painting by Tonita Pena, Santa Fe, Cochiti, Pueblo, male, female
Located in Santa Fe, NM
Deer Dance, painting by Tonita Pena, Santa Fe, Cochiti, Pueblo, male, female Tonita Peña (born 1893 in San Ildefonso, died 1949 in Kewa Pueblo, New Mexico) was born as Quah Ah (meaning white coral beads) but also used the name Tonita Vigil Peña and María Antonia Tonita Peña. Peña was a renowned Pueblo artist, specializing in pen and ink on paper embellished with watercolor. She was a well-known and influential Native American artist and art teacher of the early 1920s and 1930s. Tonita Peña was born on May 10, 1893, at San Ildefonso Pueblo, to Ascensión Vigil Peña and Natividad Peña of San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico. When she was 12, her mother and younger sister died, as a result of complications due to the flu. Her father was unable to care for her and she was taken to Cochití Pueblo and was brought up by her aunt Martina Vigil Montoya, a prominent Cochití Pueblo potter. Peña attended St. Catherine Indian School in Santa Fe. Edgar Lee Hewett, an anthropologist involved in supervising the nearby Frijoles Canyon excavations (now Bandelier National Monument) was instrumental in developing the careers of several San Ildefonso “self-taught” artists including Tonita Peña. Hewett purchased Peña's paintings for the Museum of New Mexico and supplied her with quality paint and paper. Peña began gaining more notoriety by the end of the 1910s selling an increasing amount of her work to collectors and the La Fonda Hotel. Much of this early work was done of Pueblo cultural subject matter, in a style inspired by historic Native American works, however, her use of an artist's easel and Western painting mediums gained her acceptance among her European-American contemporaries in the art world. At the age of 25, she exhibited her work at museums and galleries in the Santa Fe and Albuquerque area. In the early 1920s, Tonita did not know how much her painting sold for at the Museum of New Mexico, so she wrote letters to the administrators because a local farmer was worried that she got paid too little. In the 1930s Peña was an instructor at the Santa Fe Indian School and at the Albuquerque Indian School and the only woman painter of the San Ildefonso Self-Taught Group, which included such noted artists as Alfonso Roybal, Julian Martinez, Abel Sánchez (Oqwa Pi), Crecencio Martinez, and Encarnación Peña. As children, these artists attended San Ildefonso day school which was part of the institution of the Dawes Act of 1887, designed to indoctrinate and assimilate Native American children into mainstream American society. In 1931, Tonita Peña exhibited at the Exposition of Indian Tribal Arts which was presented at the Grand Central Art Galleries in New York City. Works from this exhibition were shown at the 1932 Venice Biennial. That year is the only time Native American artists have shown in the official United States pavilion at that biennial, and Tonita Peña's paintings were part of that exhibition.[1 Her painting Basket Dance, that had shown in the Venice Biennial was acquired by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York for $225. This was the highest price paid up to this time for a Pueblo painting...
Category

1940s Tribal Figurative Paintings

Materials

Paint, Paper

Expressionist 1940s Self Portrait Oil Painting in Blues, Greens, Gray, Interior
By Cornelis Ruhtenberg
Located in Denver, CO
Expressionist style self portrait of the artist, Cornelis Ruhtenberg (1923-2008), oil on board painted in 1949. Signed by the artist on verso. Interior scene of the artist painted in...
Category

1940s Expressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

'Woman Seated', Paris, Louvre, Académies Chaumière, LACMA, SFAA
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Stamped, verso, with estate stamp for Victor Di Gesu (American, 1914-1988) and created circa 1950. A loose study of a woman seated in a dress, resting her chin on her hand and recli...
Category

1950s Post-Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Paper

Artist and His Family, 1950s Interior Figurative Oil Painting, Red Green White
Located in Denver, CO
Oil on board painting by Donna Marecak (1922-1998) titled 'Artist and his Family' from 1950. Interior scene with four figures, a baby, and a cat gathered around a table. Painted in ...
Category

1950s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Saint-Germain-des-Prés. 1946. Oil on canvas, 73x92 cm
Located in Riga, LV
Saint-Germain-des-Prés. 1946. Oil on canvas, 73x92 cm
Category

1940s Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Portrait. On a yellow background 1950's, oil on cardboard, 49.5x35 cm
Located in Riga, LV
Portrait. On a yellow background 1950's, oil on cardboard, 49,5x35 cm Laimdots Murnieks has said: "I am a sunny artist. The sun and a woman are the center of the world. It is not ...
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Cardboard

Daily Life Scene in a 17th Century Vermeer Style - Dutch Oil Painting on Canvas
Located in Pasadena, CA
This tribute painting to Flemish art by an unknown artist portrays figures inside a mansion with a yellow and black checkerboard floor and a stained-glass window with brilliant color...
Category

1940s Flemish School Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

“Fleet Week”
Located in Southampton, NY
Original oil on masonite painting of Fleet Week with sailors flirting with young women on the dock by the American artist, Sarah Pace Carothers Rhode. ...
Category

1940s Ashcan School Figurative Paintings

Materials

Masonite, Oil

Untitled Couple Mid Century Jewish Expressionist OIl Painting
Located in Surfside, FL
Abstracted painting of a man and a woman, the paint has been applied to textured plastic. An abstracted painting of a couple applying paint to the textured plastic surface. Genre Expressionist Fauvist Subject People Medium Acrylic Plastic Surface Board Country United States Dimensions 24" x 11 1/2" She exhibited her painting at the famous Jewish art show held at the Dallas Museum Contemporary Fine Arts Exhibition of the American Jewish Tercentenary in 1955 alogside artists Aarons, George, Benn, Ben, Berkman, Aaron, Bloom, Hyman Bohrod, Aaron Gottlieb, Adolph, Gropper, William, Gross, Chaim Gurr, Lena amongst others. Born in 1899, Belle Golinko is a listed Jewish mid...
Category

1950s Expressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Plastic, Oil

French Fauvist Post Impressionist Oil Painting Frederick Serger Ecole de Paris
Located in Surfside, FL
Frederick Serger Genre: Post Impressionist Subject: Flowers, Poppies Medium: Oil Surface: Panel Frederick Serger (given name Frederick Bedrick Sinaberger) was born in 1889 to a family of Jewish manufacturers in the village of Ivancice near Brno Moravia, a province of Czechoslovakia. Showing artistic talent at a young age, he attended art schools in Brno, Czech, Vienna, Austria and Munich, Germany. During World War I, Serger joined the Austrian Army and served in the Balkans. Once his service ended, he traveled to Paris where he resumed his art training and eagerly joined the Ecole de Paris (School of Paris) artists’ movement. During this period, he was greatly influenced by the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Expressionist movements. While living in Paris, he met and married Helen Spitzer. Serger and his young wife moved from Paris to Scoczow, a city on the Polish-Czech border. They remained in Scoczow for 12 years and he continued to work as an artist, exhibiting in museums in Cracow and Warsaw, Poland. He also showed at the Paris Salon de Tuilleries and the Salon d’Automne. He was part of the generation of expat artists, mostly jewish known as the School of Paris. They created art in the styles of Post-Impressionism, Cubism and Fauvism. The group included artists Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani and Piet Mondrian. Associated French artists included Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes. Many École de Paris artists lived in the iconic La Ruche, a complex of studio apartments and other facilities in Montparnasse on the Left Bank, at 2 Passage Dantzig, built by a successful sculptor, Alfred Boucher, who wanted to develop a creative hub where struggling artists could live, work and interact. A significant subset, the Jewish artists, came to be known as the Jewish School of Paris or the School of Montparnasse. The core members were almost all Jews, included Emmanuel Mane-Katz, Abraham Mintchine...
Category

1940s Expressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Figurative Paintings for Sale

Figurative art, as opposed to abstract art, retains features from the observable world in its representational depictions of subject matter. Most commonly, figurative paintings reference and explore the human body, but they can also include landscapes, architecture, plants and animals — all portrayed with realism.

While the oldest figurative art dates back tens of thousands of years to cave wall paintings, figurative works made from observation became especially prominent in the early Renaissance. Artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance masters created naturalistic representations of their subjects.

Pablo Picasso is lauded for laying the foundation for modern figurative art in the 1920s. Although abstracted, this work held a strong connection to representing people and other subjects. Other famous figurative artists include Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. Figurative art in the 20th century would span such diverse genres as Expressionism, Pop art and Surrealism.

Today, a number of figural artists — such as Sedrick Huckaby, Daisy Patton and Eileen Cooper — are making art that uses the human body as its subject.

Because figurative art represents subjects from the real world, natural colors are common in these paintings. A piece of figurative art can be an exciting starting point for setting a tone and creating a color palette in a room.

Browse an extensive collection of figurative paintings on 1stDibs.

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