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Art Subject: Photography
Sunshine Bliss: The Aroma of Summer Watermelon. Portrait Oil painting on canvas
Located in Zofingen, AG
Oil on canvas. "Sunshine Bliss: The Aroma of Summer Watermelon" In this painting, a vivid and joyful spectacle unfolds before us, as if a sunbeam has penetrated directly onto the c...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Post-Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Paint, Cotton Canvas, Oil

19th century French scene of Lovers walking in a Garden, in 17th century costume
Located in Woodbury, CT
19th century French scene of Lovers walking in a Garden, in 17th century costume original frame Wonderful 19th century classical Genre scene, painted with great skill and delicasicy . The artist has captured the meetiung of the two lovers...
Category

1870s Victorian Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Inner Light - 21st Century Contemporary, Expressionist Portrait, African Woman
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
Shipping Procedure Ships in a well-protected tube from Nigeria This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity (Issued by the Gal...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Expressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

COMPANEROS
By Carlos Manuel Salazar Ramirez
Located in Los Angeles, CA
CARLOS MANUEL SALAZAR RAMIREZ "COMPANEROS" ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, SIGNED COSTA RICA, DATED 1989 16 X 24 INCHES Carlos Manuel Salazar Ramírez Born 1954 Ramírez is a artist born i...
Category

1980s Surrealist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

A Ballynakill Woman.
Located in Storrs, CT
A Ballynakill Woman. c. 1926. Oil on canvas. 30 x 25. Housed in an elegant gold leaf frame. Signed 'Brockhurst' in green paint, in the blanket, lower right. Provenance: Provenance...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Victorian 19th century portrait of an seated English Flower Seller
Located in Woodbury, CT
Victorian 19th-century portrait of a seated English Flower Seller. This is a very pretty classic English Victorian Genre painting. The style ...
Category

1850s Victorian Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

LARGE OIL PAINTING OLD MASTER ARTHUR MEADOWS (1843 - 1907) FINE 19th CENTURY
Located in Ferndown, GB
OIL PAINTING OLD MASTER ARTHUR MEADOWS (1843 - 1907) FINE 19th CENTURY BRITISH Original Antique Large late 19th/early 20th Century British OLD MASTER OIL PAINTING Romantic Sea Scene...
Category

19th Century Realist Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil

Expectation 1 - 21st Century, Contemporary, Figurative Portrait, African Women
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
This artwork is inspired by one of the issues amongst many in the traditional Yoruba African society where I'm still growing up as the son of the soil. As I was growing up and up til...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Still Life - Oil on Canvas - Late 19th century
Located in Roma, IT
Still Life is an artwork realized by an unknown artist in the late 19th Century. Oil on Canvas Mounted on Board. Original wooden frame. 18 x 13 cm. Good conditions
Category

Late 19th Century Modern Still-life Paintings

Materials

Board, Canvas, Oil

Presumed portrait of Marie-Anne de Bourbon
Located in BELEYMAS, FR
Nicolas de LARGILLIERRE (Paris 1656 – 1746) Portrait of a woman, presumed to be Marie-Anne de Bourbon, Princess of Conti (1666-1739) Oil on oval canvas H. 8...
Category

Early 1700s French School Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Rush Hour Reflection Millennium Bridge-original impressionism cityscape painting
Located in London, Chelsea
This exceptional artwork is currently on display and available for sale at Signet Contemporary Art Gallery and online. "Rush Hour Reflection Millennium Bridge" by Richard Gower is a...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Men Portrait
Located in PARIS, FR
Lucien Jonas (1880 - 1947) Men Portrait 1920 Oil on canvas 81 x 65,5 cm Signed and dated bottom right
Category

1920s Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Captain
Located in Columbia, MO
F. CLEVEROT Captain 1898 Oil on panel 18 x 14 inches Framed: 28 x 24 inches Hand signed lower right recto
Category

19th Century Naturalistic Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Floating in pink II - figurative painting, landscape painting
Located in New York, NY
This beautiful minimalist round figurative painting by Ana is from her latest body of works. It is acrylic on canvas, 60 cm in diameter and comes signed dated along with a certificat...
Category

2010s Minimalist Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

"In the Room Where You Sleep" by Daire Lynch, Original Oil Painting, Nude Female
Located in Denver, CO
"In the Room Where You Sleep" by Daire Lynch (Ireland based) is an original oil, acrylic and gold leaf on canvas that depicts a red haired nude model in ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Nude Paintings

Materials

Gold Leaf

Blackberry Picking Figures in Rural Cottage Lane Victorian Oil Painting
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Blackberry Picking Victorian oil painting by Thomas James Purchas (British 1855-1930) with name plaque to frame oil painting on board, framed within ornate scrolled gilt frame framed...
Category

Late 19th Century Victorian Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil

Chinese Contemporary Art by Su Yu - The Sky of Children
Located in Paris, IDF
Oil on canvas Su Yu is a Chinese artist born in 1987 who lives & works in Beijing in China. He was an old student of prestigious art teachers as Shi Liang & Chen Danqing at Oil Pain...
Category

2010s Realist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Mid Century French Drawing of a Classical Bald Male Bust
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Title: Mid Century French Male Bust Artist: Josine Vignon (French 1922-2022) Medium: Pencil/ charcoal on artists paper Size: 19 (height) x 12.5 (width) Stamped: Verso Condition:...
Category

Mid-20th Century Post-Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Charcoal, Pencil

"Sergei" - Oil on Canvas Realist Portrait Painting 2016
Located in Denver, CO
"Sergei," an original oil painting on canvas created in 2016 by Viktoria Savenkova, is an expressive realist portrait rendered with skillful precision and emotional depth. Measuring ...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

She's Always Behind My Back -21st Century, Contemporary, Portrait, Love, Family
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
The painting is about the human relationship between brothers and sisters, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. How they fought, stood, and supported each other with love, shari...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Expressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

19th century Czech portrait of a lady, young girl, red scarf arms folded smiling
Located in Woodbury, CT
Josef Zenisek (1855–1944) Portrait of a Young Woman with Red Scarf, circa 1900 Oil on canvas Signed lower left This beautifully rendered portrait by Josef Zenisek captures the pois...
Category

Early 1900s Victorian Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Shackled Freedom - 21st Century, Expressionist, Figurative Portrait, Nude, Women
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
Shipping Procedure Ships in a well-protected tube. This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. About Artist Sayeed Momoh is...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Charcoal

Shire Horse & Man by Woodland River in the English Countryside by British Artist
Located in Preston, GB
Shire Horse & Man by Woodland River in the English Countryside by British Artist, Peter J Greenhill Art measures 24 x 18 inches Frame measures 30 x...
Category

20th Century Realist Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Love Never End - 21st Century, Contemporary, Realist Portrait, Black Woman
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
It all started when we both met years back. I loved you and you loved me too. Our love journey began and was full of joy, love, peace and happiness! You showered me with the love I ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

Waiting for Him, 19th Century, French-American signed canvas oil
Located in New York, NY
Frank C. Penfold New York - France, 1849-1927 Waiting for Him 1880 Oil on canvas 31 5/8 x 22 inches (80.3 x 55.9 cm) Framed: 41 x 31 inches (104.1 x 78.7 cm) Signed and dated lower l...
Category

1880s American Impressionist Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Madonna del Granduca, after Raphael
Located in West Sussex, GB
"Madonna del Granduca", after Raphael Oil on Canvas: 34 x 22.5 in. Frame: 45 x 33 ½ in. Inscribed verso. Pitti Palace red wax seal verso*. Fine Gilt Carv...
Category

Early 17th Century Baroque Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

19th century portrait of a young Scottish/British boy in school uniform
Located in Woodbury, CT
Well painted 19th-century portrait of a young boy possible in a School Uniform. With the label on the reverse being from Scottish panel makers, we bel...
Category

1840s Victorian Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

February 15, 1998 (98-99 Series), Original Painting
Located in San Francisco, CA

Artist Comments
In this black and white portrait, artist Mark Cudd captures the quiet intensity of a suited man, his gaze fixed directly on the viewer. Referenced from a vintag...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Military french painting 1870 war soldier horse Sketch 19th
Located in PARIS, FR
Alphonse de NEUVILLE Saint-Omer, 1835 - Paris, 1885 Oil on wood panel 14.5 x 24 cm Signed lower right Alphonse de Neuville painted french soldier...
Category

1870s French School Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

"O.W. Circles" by Anne Siems, Painting with female portrait, on paper, framed
Located in Dallas, TX
Anne Siems has created this artwork by painting and drawing over an archival print on thick 100% cotton fiber paper. All archival materials. Unframed size: 8.5x11 inches Frame size: 15x12x1 inch ANNE SIEMS (b. 1965, Germany) Artist Statement I was born in Berlin, Germany. From 1969 to 1971 I lived near Buenos Aires, Argentina. My first extended stay in the US was as an exchange student in 1986. Then in 1991, after finishing my MFA in Berlin, I moved to Seattle, WA. My work has moved from semi-abstract, room-filling plant and insect drawings...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Ceramic, Acrylic, Panel

Sailing from Leticia to Santa Rosa by Calo Carratalá - Round painting, landscape
Located in Paris, FR
Sailing from Leticia to Santa Rosa is a unique round oil on canvas painting by Spanish contemporary artist Calo Carratalá, diameter is 194 (76.4). ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Resigned" (2024) Original Oil Portrait Painting by Michael Carson
Located in Denver, CO
Michael Carson's (US based) "Resigned" (2024) is an original, handmade oil painting that is framed in a black float frame. About the Artist: Mike Carson is a Minneapolis painter, a...
Category

2010s Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Drummer, by Gay Betts Native American Drummer, oil on canvas painting
Located in Santa Fe, NM
Born and raised in New York City, Grace (Gay) Betts (1883-1978) became a peripatetic painter of Western and Southwest landscapes and Indians, and her subjects included Yosemite National Park and Arizona tribal members. She was also a muralist who did backdrops for animal displays...
Category

1960s Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

19th century French Portrait of Gentleman on horseback with top hat
Located in Woodbury, CT
This late 19th-century French portrait depicts a distinguished gentleman on horseback, elegantly dressed in a green riding coat, gray trousers, and a black top hat, exuding aristocra...
Category

1880s Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Still Life - Oil on Canvas - Late 19th century
Located in Roma, IT
Still Life is an artwork realized by an unknonwn artist in the late 19th Century. Oil on Board. 21 x 15 cm. Good conditions
Category

Late 19th Century Modern Still-life Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board, Canvas

Antique early 20th century English Autumn river landscape
Located in Woodbury, CT
Early 20th-Century Antique English Autumn/fall river landscape. Sidney Pike was a prolific landscape and genre artist exhibiting between 1880-1907, London based originally he seems ...
Category

Early 1900s Impressionist Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Blue Side
Located in Denver, CO
Hunt Slonem's artistic trajectory has always been characterized by a deep exploration of spiritual themes. His use of repetition in form—particularly with his beloved bunnies—serves ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Wood

Unspoken Chapters -21st Century, Contemporary, Figurative Portrait, Modern Women
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
Shipping Procedure Ships in a well-protected tube. This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. About Artist Elie HATUNGIMAN...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

French Impressionist Figurative Oil Pastel Painting"Resting Mother with Child"
Located in Douglas Manor, NY
5-2620 Vintage original colored pastel on paper displayed in a gilt wood frame under glass.Arist unknown
Category

1940s Figurative Paintings

Materials

Pastel

Fishing in the Itaya River
Located in Paris, FR
Fishing in the Itaya River is a painting by contemporary Spanish artist Calo Carratalá from the “Jungle” series. It represents two fishermen on the Itaya river in Peru. In the series...
Category

2010s Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Self-portrait after Van Gogh, by Henrico (Richio) Galvez
Located in San Francisco, CA
Given Vincent Van Gogh’s mental state when he painted his September 1889 self-portrait, possibly his last, it would be risky business by another artist to produce his own self-portra...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Post-Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Man Reaching Down: Tondo
Located in London, GB
Alkyd-oil on Masonite, signed and dated (middle left), 61cm (diam.), (83cm diam. framed). (This work was kept by the artist for his personal collection. It remained in his collection...
Category

1980s Post-War Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

"Witness" (2016) by Lisa Fricker, Original Oil Portrait Painting
Located in Denver, CO
Lisa Fricker's "Witness" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts a portrait of a young woman. It measures 8 x 8 inches and is unframed but ready to hang.
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Portrait Paintings

Materials

Linen, Oil

Oil on canvas - Maternity
Located in Sant Celoni, ES
La obra va firmada en la parte inferior Se presenta enmarcada la obra con un bello marco de la época de la obra en madera dorara (el marco presenta alguna leve falta) El estado de ...
Category

Early 20th Century Realist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

Head Wrap
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
Shipping Procedure FREE Shipping Worldwide Ships in a well-protected tube. This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. Head wrap...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

Head Wrap
Head Wrap
$2,600 Sale Price
35% Off
Summers Evening in the Scottish Highlands Antique Oil Painting Sunset Loch View
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Summers Evening in the Highlands by Frank Hider (c. 1861–1933) signed, titled verso oil painting on canvas, framed framed: 17 x 25 inches canvas: 12 x 20 inches Provenance: Private ...
Category

Late 19th Century Victorian Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Realist 19 Century painting of a french woman lighting a cigarette
Located in New York, NY
Woman lighting a cigarette by Victor Gabriel Gilbert. Excellent condition and original frame. Signed low left.
Category

19th Century Realist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

While I Wait 1 - 21st Century, Contemporary, Figurative, Portrait, Women, Love
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
My waiting times, my fraying hours. The mere thought of the future makes me shiver. No longer at ease with these groans and moans, I take a bow out of my fearsome worries. Suddenly, ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Impressionist Portrait of a Young Girl
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid century oil on canvas portrait of a young woman in a hat by Nino Giuffrida. The painting is signed centre right and is presented in a patinated wood frame. This vibrant painting...
Category

Mid-20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Focus (Bold Face) - 21st Century Contemporary, Figurative Portrait, Woman
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
Energy is the essence of life. Every day you decide how you are going to use it by knowing what you want and what it takes to reach that goal. Spend your energies on moving forward t...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

"The General" oil painting, realist portrait of senior army officer w sideburns
Located in Sag Harbor, NY
"The General" is a realist oil on linen painting. A portrait of a senior war offical, The General wears a dark grey military jacket and a white undershirt can be seen poking out at h...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Linen, Oil

"Arc de Triomphe" Post-Impressionist Parisian Nocturne Street Scene Oil Painting
Located in New York, NY
Louis Van Der Pol (Dutch, 1896-1982) was active in the 20th Century and lived in Holland. He was known for his large format elaborate romantic portrait paintings and city street scen...
Category

Mid-20th Century Post-Impressionist Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

LARGE OIL PAINTING by ANTHONY BRANDRETT (NAVY ADMIRALTY 20th CENTURY PIECE
Located in Ferndown, GB
LARGE FINE 20th Century Piece Maritime Battle Scene British oil painting in a Gold Gilt Frame FINE RARE MARTINE PAINTING ORIGINAL 20th Century OLD MASTER STYLE OIL PAINTING GOLD GILT FRAME By Similar $10,000 Premier Collection NEW COLLECTION Of RARE PIECES OF OLD HISTORY Good condition for age , (see pictures) Description Born in 1940 Anthony Brandrett...
Category

Mid-20th Century Realist Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil

Modernist Oil Painting George Schwacha Brooklyn Street Scene Fruit Market WPA
Located in Surfside, FL
Hand signed lower left corner Oil on masonite Dimensions: Frame H 18.25" x W 22.25". Sight H 11.25" x W 15.25 This is a great scene, vintage Americana. Possibly Crown Heights in Brooklyn New York City. Done in a mid century modern style with great vibrant colors and loose, adept, brushwork. Fruit vendor with ladies shopping. George Schwacha, Jr. (1908 - 1986) New Jersey artist. Known for Landscape painting and snow scenes. He studied Arthur W. Woelfle; John Grabach; Edward Dufner and A. Schweider. George Schwacha was president of the American Artists Professional League and a past president of the Audubon Artists and Art Center of New Jersey. He belongs to the American Watercolor Society, The National Society of Painters in Casein, and the Philadelphia Watercolor Club. His paintings have been shown throughout the country at museums such as the Pennsylvania Academy, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC and the Birmingham Art Museum, The Butler Art Institute in Youngstown, Ohio the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, as well as in leading New Jersey and New York exhibitions, including the American Society of Arts and Letters. He is listed in Who's Who in American Art and International Directory of Arts. His work is represented nationally in over 30 museums and public collections including the Newark Museum, Montclair Museum, Birmingham Art Museum, the Isaac Delgado Museum in New Orleans, and the Butler Art Institute. Worldwide he is also represented in collections in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hong Kong, Israel, Scotland and Switzerland. Seymour Zayon, Bertram Hartman, Hugh Campbell, Frank Herbst, Joseph Newman, Theodore Valenkamph, Robert John McClelland, Nicolai Cikovsky, Ben Benn, George Howell Gay, Robert Brackman, Vernon Wood...
Category

Mid-20th Century American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Masonite, Oil

1940's French Portrait of Young Man Original Signed Oil on Canvas Period Frame
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Portrait of a Man by Roger Allain (French 1920-1992) signed and dated 1941 (a very rare period due to WW2) oil on canvas canvas: 22 x 18 inches provenance...
Category

Mid-20th Century Post-Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

"Elvis", Denied Andy Warhol Silver & Black Pop Art Painting by Charles Lutz
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Elvis, Metallic Silver and Black Full Length Silkscreen Painting by Charles Lutz Silkscreen and silver enamel painted on vintage 1960's era linen with Artist's Denied stamp of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board. 82" x 40" inches 2010 Lutz's 2007 ''Warhol Denied'' series gained international attention by calling into question the importance of originality or lack thereof in the work of Andy Warhol. The authentication/denial process of the [[Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board]] was used to create value by submitting recreations of Warhol works for judgment with the full intention for the works to be formally marked "DENIED". The final product of the conceptual project being "officially denied" "Warhol" paintings authored by Lutz. Based on the full-length Elvis Presley paintings by Pop Artist Andy Warhol in 1964, this is likely one of his most iconic images, next to Campbell's Soup Cans and portraits of Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor, and Marlon Brando. This is the rarest of the Elvis works from the series, as Lutz sourced a vintage roll of 1960's primed artist linen which was used for this one Elvis. The silkscreen, like Warhol's embraced imperfections, like the slight double image printing of the Elvis image. Lutz received his BFA in Painting and Art History from Pratt Institute and studied Human Dissection and Anatomy at Columbia University, New York. Lutz's work deals with perceptions and value structures, specifically the idea of the transference of values. Lutz's most recently presented an installation of new sculptures dealing with consumerism at Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater House in 2022. Lutz's 2007 Warhol Denied series received international attention calling into question the importance of originality in a work of art. The valuation process (authentication or denial) of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board was used by the artist to create value by submitting recreations of Warhol works for judgment, with the full intention for the works to be formally marked "DENIED" of their authenticity. The final product of this conceptual project is "Officially DENIED" "Warhol" paintings authored by Lutz. Later in 2013, Lutz went on to do one of his largest public installations to date. At the 100th Anniversary of Marcel Duchamp's groundbreaking and controversial Armory Show, Lutz was asked by the curator of Armory Focus: USA and former Director of The Andy Warhol Museum, Eric Shiner to create a site-specific installation representing the US. The installation "Babel" (based on Pieter Bruegel's famous painting) consisted of 1500 cardboard replicas of Warhol's Brillo Box (Stockholm Type) stacked 20 ft tall. All 1500 boxes were then given to the public freely, debasing the Brillo Box as an art commodity by removing its value, in addition to debasing its willing consumers. Elvis was "the greatest cultural force in the Twentieth Century. He introduced the beat to everything, and he changed everything - music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution." Leonard Bernstein in: Exh. Cat., Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art and traveling, Elvis + Marilyn 2 x Immortal, 1994-97, p. 9. Andy Warhol "quite simply changed how we all see the world around us." Kynaston McShine in: Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 1996, p. 13. In the summer of 1963 Elvis Presley was just twenty-eight years old but already a legend of his time. During the preceding seven years - since Heartbreak Hotel became the biggest-selling record of 1956 - he had recorded seventeen number-one singles and seven number-one albums; starred in eleven films, countless national TV appearances, tours, and live performances; earned tens of millions of dollars; and was instantly recognized across the globe. The undisputed King of Rock and Roll, Elvis was the biggest star alive: a cultural phenomenon of mythic proportions apparently no longer confined to the man alone. As the eminent composer Leonard Bernstein put it, Elvis was "the greatest cultural force in the Twentieth Century. He introduced the beat to everything, and he changed everything - music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution." (Exh. Cat., Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art (and traveling), Elvis + Marilyn 2 x Immortal, 1994, p. 9). In the summer of 1963 Andy Warhol was thirty-four years old and transforming the parameters of visual culture in America. The focus of his signature silkscreen was leveled at subjects he brilliantly perceived as the most important concerns of day to day contemporary life. By appropriating the visual vernacular of consumer culture and multiplying readymade images gleaned from newspapers, magazines and advertising, he turned a mirror onto the contradictions behind quotidian existence. Above all else he was obsessed with themes of celebrity and death, executing intensely multifaceted and complex works in series that continue to resound with universal relevance. His unprecedented practice re-presented how society viewed itself, simultaneously reinforcing and radically undermining the collective psychology of popular culture. He epitomized the tide of change that swept through the 1960s and, as Kynaston McShine has concisely stated, "He quite simply changed how we all see the world around us." (Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 1996, p. 13). Thus in the summer of 1963 there could not have been a more perfect alignment of artist and subject than Warhol and Elvis. Perhaps the most famous depiction of the biggest superstar by the original superstar artist, Double Elvis is a historic paradigm of Pop Art from a breath-taking moment in Art History. With devastating immediacy and efficiency, Warhol's canvas seduces our view with a stunning aesthetic and confronts our experience with a sophisticated array of thematic content. Not only is there all of Elvis, man and legend, but we are also presented with the specter of death, staring at us down the barrel of a gun; and the lone cowboy, confronting the great frontier and the American dream. The spray painted silver screen denotes the glamour and glory of cinema, the artificiality of fantasy, and the idea of a mirror that reveals our own reality back to us. At the same time, Warhol's replication of Elvis' image as a double stands as metaphor for the means and effects of mass-media and its inherent potential to manipulate and condition. These thematic strata function in simultaneous concert to deliver a work of phenomenal conceptual brilliance. The portrait of a man, the portrait of a country, and the portrait of a time, Double Elvis is an indisputable icon for our age. The source image was a publicity still for the movie Flaming Star, starring Presley as the character Pacer Burton and directed by Don Siegel in 1960. The film was originally intended as a vehicle for Marlon Brando and produced by David Weisbart, who had made James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause in 1955. It was the first of two Twentieth Century Fox productions Presley was contracted to by his manager Colonel Tom Parker, determined to make the singer a movie star. For the compulsive movie-fan Warhol, the sheer power of Elvis wielding a revolver as the reluctant gunslinger presented the zenith of subject matter: ultimate celebrity invested with the ultimate power to issue death. Warhol's Elvis is physically larger than life and wears the expression that catapulted him into a million hearts: inexplicably and all at once fearful and resolute; vulnerable and predatory; innocent and explicit. It is the look of David Halberstam's observation that "Elvis Presley was an American original, the rebel as mother's boy, alternately sweet and sullen, ready on demand to be either respectable or rebellious." (Exh. Cat., Boston, Op. Cit.). Indeed, amidst Warhol's art there is only one other subject whose character so ethereally defies categorization and who so acutely conflated total fame with the inevitability of mortality. In Warhol's work, only Elvis and Marilyn harness a pictorial magnetism of mythic proportions. With Marilyn Monroe, whom Warhol depicted immediately after her premature death in August 1962, he discovered a memento mori to unite the obsessions driving his career: glamour, beauty, fame, and death. As a star of the silver screen and the definitive international sex symbol, Marilyn epitomized the unattainable essence of superstardom that Warhol craved. Just as there was no question in 1963, there remains still none today that the male equivalent to Marilyn is Elvis. However, despite his famous 1968 adage, "If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings" Warhol's fascination held purpose far beyond mere idolization. As Rainer Crone explained in 1970, Warhol was interested in movie stars above all else because they were "people who could justifiably be seen as the nearest thing to representatives of mass culture." (Rainer Crone, Andy Warhol, New York, 1970, p. 22). Warhol was singularly drawn to the idols of Elvis and Marilyn, as he was to Marlon Brando and Liz Taylor, because he implicitly understood the concurrence between the projection of their image and the projection of their brand. Some years after the present work he wrote, "In the early days of film, fans used to idolize a whole star - they would take one star and love everything about that star...So you should always have a product that's not just 'you.' An actress should count up her plays and movies and a model should count up her photographs and a writer should count up his words and an artist should count up his pictures so you always know exactly what you're worth, and you don't get stuck thinking your product is you and your fame, and your aura." (Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again), San Diego, New York and London, 1977, p. 86). The film stars of the late 1950s and early 1960s that most obsessed Warhol embodied tectonic shifts in wider cultural and societal values. In 1971 John Coplans argued that Warhol was transfixed by the subject of Elvis, and to a lesser degree by Marlon Brando and James Dean, because they were "authentically creative, and not merely products of Hollywood's fantasy or commercialism. All three had originative lives, and therefore are strong personalities; all three raised - at one level or another - important questions as to the quality of life in America and the nature of its freedoms. Implicit in their attitude is a condemnation of society and its ways; they project an image of the necessity for the individual to search for his own future, not passively, but aggressively, with commitment and passion." (John Coplans, "Andy Warhol and Elvis Presley," Studio International, vol. 181, no. 930, February 1971, pp. 51-52). However, while Warhol unquestionably adored these idols as transformative heralds, the suggestion that his paintings of Elvis are uncritical of a generated public image issued for mass consumption fails to appreciate the acuity of his specific re-presentation of the King. As with Marilyn, Liz and Marlon, Warhol instinctively understood the Elvis brand as an industrialized construct, designed for mass consumption like a Coca-Cola bottle or Campbell's Soup Can, and radically revealed it as a precisely composed non-reality. Of course Elvis offered Warhol the biggest brand of all, and he accentuates this by choosing a manifestly contrived version of Elvis-the-film-star, rather than the raw genius of Elvis as performing Rock n' Roll pioneer. A few months prior to the present work he had silkscreened Elvis' brooding visage in a small cycle of works based on a simple headshot, including Red Elvis, but the absence of context in these works minimizes the critical potency that is so present in Double Elvis. With Double Elvis we are confronted by a figure so familiar to us, yet playing a role relating to violence and death that is entirely at odds with the associations entrenched with the singer's renowned love songs. Although we may think this version of Elvis makes sense, it is the overwhelming power of the totemic cipher of the Elvis legend that means we might not even question why he is pointing a gun rather than a guitar. Thus Warhol interrogates the limits of the popular visual vernacular, posing vital questions of collective perception and cognition in contemporary society. The notion that this self-determinedly iconic painting shows an artificial paradigm is compounded by Warhol's enlistment of a reflective metallic surface, a treatment he reserved for his most important portraits of Elvis, Marilyn, Marlon and Liz. Here the synthetic chemical silver paint becomes allegory for the manufacture of the Elvis product, and directly anticipates the artist's 1968 statement: "Everything is sort of artificial. I don't know where the artificial stops and the real starts. The artificial fascinates me, the bright and shiny..." (Artist quoted in Exh. Cat., Stockholm, Moderna Museet and traveling, Andy Warhol, 1968, n.p.). At the same time, the shiny silver paint of Double Elvis unquestionably denotes the glamour of the silver screen and the attractive fantasies of cinema. At exactly this time in the summer of 1963 Warhol bought his first movie camera and produced his first films such as Sleep, Kiss and Tarzan and Jane Regained. Although the absence of plot or narrative convention in these movies was a purposely anti-Hollywood gesture, the unattainability of classic movie stardom still held profound allure and resonance for Warhol. He remained a celebrity and film fanatic, and it was exactly this addiction that so qualifies his sensational critique of the industry machinations behind the stars he adored. Double Elvis was executed less than eighteen months after he had created 32 Campbell's Soup Cans for his immortal show at the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles in July and August 1962, and which is famously housed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In the intervening period he had produced the series Dollar Bills, Coca-Cola Bottles, Suicides, Disasters, and Silver Electric Chairs, all in addition to the portrait cycles of Marilyn and Liz. This explosive outpouring of astonishing artistic invention stands as definitive testament to Warhol's aptitude to seize the most potent images of his time. He recognized that not only the product itself, but also the means of consumption - in this case society's abandoned deification of Elvis - was symptomatic of a new mode of existence. As Heiner Bastian has precisely summated: "the aura of utterly affirmative idolization already stands as a stereotype of a 'consumer-goods style' expression of an American way of life and of the mass-media culture of a nation." (Exh. Cat., Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 2001, p. 28). For Warhol, the act of image replication and multiplication anaesthetized the effect of the subject, and while he had undermined the potency of wealth in 200 One Dollar Bills, and cheated the terror of death by electric chair in Silver Disaster # 6, the proliferation of Elvis here emasculates a prefabricated version of character authenticity. Here the cinematic quality of variety within unity is apparent in the degrees to which Presley's arm and gun become less visible to the left of the canvas. The sense of movement is further enhanced by a sense of receding depth as the viewer is presented with the ghost like repetition of the figure in the left of the canvas, a 'jump effect' in the screening process that would be replicated in the multiple Elvis paintings. The seriality of the image heightens the sense of a moving image, displayed for us like the unwinding of a reel of film. Elvis was central to Warhol's legendary solo exhibition organized by Irving Blum at the Ferus Gallery in the Fall of 1963 - the show having been conceived around the Elvis paintings since at least May of that year. A well-known installation photograph shows the present work prominently presented among the constant reel of canvases, designed to fill the space as a filmic diorama. While the Elvis canvases...
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21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Paintings

Materials

Enamel

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Category

1970s Naturalistic Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Panel

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Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Paintings

Materials

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Artist/ School: French School, signed Clayson and dated 55' Title: Portrait of a Young Man Medium: oil on canvas, unframed Canvas: 25.5 x 21.5 inches Provenance: private collect...
Category

Mid-20th Century Post-Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

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