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Portrait Paintings For Sale
Period: 1950s
Period: 18th Century
Woman portrait. 1955, oil on canvas, 50.5 x 40.6 cm
Located in Riga, LV
Woman portrait. 1955, oil on canvas, 50.5 x 40.6 cm Provenance Bonhams
Category

1950s Expressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Portraits of John Wood of Hollin Hall, Yorkshire; and Francis Wood (pr)
Located in West Sussex, GB
A Superb pair of oval portraits with full provenance .Portrait of John Wood Esq of Hollin Hall, Yorkshire; Portrait of Francis Wood. Circa 1710. Oils on canvas:29 x 24 in. Frame: 37...
Category

Early 18th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Treachery in Trieste, Paperback Cover
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Date: 1954 Medium: Oil on Board Dimensions: 24.75" x 15.5" Signature: Signed Lower Left This illustration was published as the paperback cover of Treachery in Trieste by Charl...
Category

1950s Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Children's Book Cover - Mid-Century Blond Girl - Female Illustrator
Located in Miami, FL
Pioneering Female Illustrator Barbara Briggs Bradley was an in-demand illustrator in the 1950s. Merrill Publishers of their famous children's books hired Barbara Briggs Bradley to d...
Category

1950s Academic Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Gouache, Pencil

Nathaniel Hone, portrait of "flora" roman goddess, 18th century
By Nathaniel Hone the Elder
Located in York, GB
I have great pleasure in offering for sale this beautiful portrait, by Nathaniel Hone, the elder. 18th century. The painting is of Ann Anderson, wife...
Category

18th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Small Longitudinal Dark Toned Abstract Portrait of a Pregnant Woman
By Pat Colville
Located in Houston, TX
Small longitudinal dark green and yellow toned portrait by Houston, TX artist Pat Colville depicting a young pregnant woman with short hair and a sleeveless top. The subject's striki...
Category

1950s Abstract Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Violinist, Oil Painting by Abraham Straski
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Abraham Straski, Polish (1903 - 1987) Title: Violinist Year: 1958 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed l.r. Image Size: 12 x 15 inches Frame Size: 20 x 22.5 inches
Category

1950s Post-War Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Portrait Of Maria Walpole Duchess of Gloucester & Edinburgh (1736-1805)
Located in Blackwater, GB
Portrait Of Maria Walpole Duchess of Gloucester & Edinburgh (1736-1805), 18th Century attributed to Richard COSWAY (1742-1821) 18th Century English portrait of Maria Walpole, Duch...
Category

18th Century Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Vintage Mid-Century Modern Swedish Figurative Framed Oil Painting - The Priests
Located in Bristol, GB
THE PRIESTS Size: 60 x 48 cm (including frame) Oil on canvas A brilliantly painted mid century figurative portrait of 2 priests, exec...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Portrait of Lady on Wedding Day - Mid 20th Century Impressionist Pastel by Mason
Located in Watford, Hertfordshire
William Mason (1906-2002) was a painter born in Newport, Wales, who studied at Newport College of Art and the Royal College of Art. Aside from painting he also taught at Scarborough...
Category

1950s Post-Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil Pastel

ENOCH SEEMAN (circle of) PORTRAIT OF SIR FRANCIS SEYMOUR AS A BOY
By Enoch Seeman
Located in York, GB
ENOCH SEEMAN (circle of) PORTRAIT OF SIR FRANCIS SEYMOUR AS A BOY A very fine 18th century portrait of Sir Francis Seymour as a boy,oil on canvas housed in a gilt frame, circle of Enoch Seeman The size of the painting is 49 x 39.5cm (19¼ x 15½ in.) whilst overall the size is 65 cm x 56 cm The painting is in very good condition, the Canvas has been relined, and recently cleaned. Provenance: Anonymous sale, Christie's, 19 January 1945, lot 34 Anonymous sale, Crewkerne, Somerset, 24 April 2009, lot 1947 SIR FRANCIS SEYMOUR Francis Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Trowbridge (c. 1590 – 12 July 1664), of Marlborough Castle and Savernake Park in Wiltshire, was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1621 and 1641 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Seymour of Trowbridge. He supported the Royalist cause during the English Civil War. In June 1611 he was accused of abetting the escape of his brother William Seymour and his wife Arabella Stuart, but protested his innocence. He was knighted by King James I at Royston on 23 October 1613. In 1612 was settled on him by his grandfather the manor of "Puriton with Downend" in Somerset, formerly one of the many possessions of his great-grandfather the 1st Duke of Somerset. In June 1642, Seymour signed the declaration that the king had no intention of war. He followed the King to York, offering to raise twenty horse in his cause, and Parliament accordingly declared him a delinquent. In autumn 1642 he went with his brother, the Marquis of Hertford, into the Westcountry to organise the royalist forces and suppress the parliamentary militia. He crossed the Bristol Channel...
Category

18th Century Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

The Blue Headdress, Group Portrait Orientalist Oil Painting, Signed and Dated
By Emile Deckers
Located in London, GB
Émile Deckers 1885 - 1968 The Blue Headress Oil on canvas, signed lower left, inscribed and dated "Algers, 1958" Image size: 26 x 33 inches (66 x 84 cm) Hand made Orientalist gilt f...
Category

1950s Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

O MARA'S MUNICIPAL TAVERN - Saturday Evening Post Illustration
Located in Miami, FL
O MARA'S MUNICIPAL TAVERN - Saturday Evening Post Illustration Supreme technical skill allows the artist to realistically capture an...
Category

1950s American Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Gouache, Illustration Board

Snap Peas, Expressionist Portrait of Young Woman by Philadelphia Artist
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Snap Peas" is an interior portrait of a young woman working at her kitchen table, painted by Philadelphia born Expressionist painter Bernard Harmon. The 24" x 36" oil on board painting from 1955 is signed "Harmon" in the lower left and it is framed in a new black wood frame. Figurative expressionism in the style of Alice Neel. Bernard Harmon was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1935. Harmon was primarily a portrait painter and a well loved teacher in the Philadelphia area. A graduate of the Philadelphia Museum School and Temples Tyler School of Art, Harmon traveled extensively in Europe and South America. Beloved by many, Harmon taught in the Philadelphia School District for 32 of his 54 years of life. Beginning his career as an art teacher at West Philadelphia High School, in the early 1960s he became one of the district's artists in residence, traveling from school to school to demonstrate for students how an artist works. Returning to the classroom, Harmon joined the art department at Central High School where he taught for 14 years and became an innovator in art curriculum, developing a program offering advanced placement art classes to gifted students. In his final years Harmon became a supervisor, mentoring teachers and overseeing programs in the Philadelphia school systems District #1. During his short life Harmon taught collage preparatory art classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, summer classes at the University of the Arts, and a Saturday program for gifted children at Drexel University. Among Harmon's portraits were commissioned by Philadelphia Jazz organist Jimmy Smith and Mayor Richardson Dilworth. Bernard Harmon was active in promoting African American Artist throughout his life time. He organized many early shows such as the "Afro American Artists 1800 - 1969" at the Museum of the Philadelphia Civic Center in 1969. He was considered a Renaissance man by friends and colleagues for his interests not only in art but music and theater as well. He was familiar and friends with many other African American artists such as Doc Thrash, Selma Burke, Paul Keene...
Category

1950s Expressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Lunar Encounter with Child, Surrealist Portrait, Oil on Canvas, 1958, Framed
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Lunar Encounter with Child" by Philadelphia born modernist painter Leon Kelly, is a large, brightly colored surrealist portrait of two figures. The 40" x 30" oil on canvas was paint...
Category

1950s Surrealist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Untitled - Surrealist Unique painting on paper/board - Max Walter Svanberg, 1957
Located in New York, NY
Max Walter Svanberg (1912-1994) Untitled, 1957 Gouache on paper Paper: 36 x 29 cm 14 1/8 x 11 in. Frame: 57 x 49 cm 22 1/2 x 19 1/3 in Signed and dated Max Walter Svanberg artwor...
Category

1950s Surrealist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Gouache, Laid Paper

Portrait of Languid Girl in Blue Camisole 18th century Italian Rococo Master
Located in Stockholm, SE
Attributed to Pietro Antonio Rotari (1707 - 1762), Italian painter of the Rococo era. His portraits, mostly of women, are renowned for being beautiful and realistic. The details and ...
Category

Mid-18th Century Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Wood, Oil

Portrait of a King's Messenger, 18th Century English Artist, Original Frame
By Charles Philips
Located in London, GB
Charles Philips 1703 - 1747 Portrait of a King's Messenger Oil on canvas Image size: 35 ¾ x 28 inches Original gilt frame King's Messenger The job of a King's Messenger was that of a diplomatic courier, hand-carrying important and secret documents around the world. Some say that the history of the sovereigns' messengers goes back to 1199, but the first known messenger was John Norman, who in 1485 earned 4d (1½ pence) per day for carrying the state papers of Richard III. The silver greyhound on the messenger's badge dates back to Charles II. In 1660, during his exile at Breda, Netherlands, Charles II issued a declaration of amnesty to all those who had opposed him and his father. He used messengers to make his intentions known. In answer to the messenger's question "How will they know me?", Charles reached forward to a silver bowl on the table in front of him. This bowl, with four decorative greyhounds standing proud above the rim, was well known to all courtiers. Charles broke off a greyhound and gave it to the messenger as a guarantee that the message came from him. From that date, the King's Messenger always wore a silver greyhound around his neck. Later, dating from George II or III, a badge with the Royal Arms in enamel, with the greyhound suspended beneath, was worn. A George III example of the King's Messenger Badge, pre 1800, sold for over £30,000 pounds some years ago. The silver greyhounds were minted for each new reign, except the brief one of King Edward VIII. The sovereign's messengers were originally controlled by the Lord Chamberlain, being Messengers of the Great Chamber. When the Foreign Office was created in 1782, the messengers remained common to the three Secretaries of State. Charles Philips was an English artist known for painting a number of portraits and conversation pieces for noble and Royal patrons in the mid-eighteenth century. Philips was baptised in the combined parish of St Mildred, Poultry with St Mary...
Category

18th Century Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mary Vincent and the Convict, Good Housekeeping Illustration - Mid Century
Located in Miami, FL
Al Parker was one of America's greatest and most inventive illustrators. He did work for magazines such as: Chatelaine, Collier's, Ladies' Home Journal and Woman's Home Companion. ...
Category

1950s American Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Masonite, Gouache, Pencil

Obelisk - Muslim Woman Hijab, Mid-Century Architectural Forms - Brazilian Artist
Located in Miami, FL
Brazilian/ American Artist William Schock paints a portrait of a Muslim woman in a Hijab gazing directly at the viewer. She is set against an obelisk and an arch in a well-balanced c...
Category

1950s Color-Field Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Noir Crime Drama Shooting - Saturday Evening Post Illustration
Located in Miami, FL
Saturday Evening Post Illustrator Thornton Utz captures the peak moment of action in this Noir Crime Drama, Shooting illustration on an interior page in the famed magazine in 1958 —...
Category

1950s American Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Board

1950s Abstract Oil Painting, Fertility Goddesses, Nude Figures, Pink Blue Green
Located in Denver, CO
This stunning mid-20th century abstract figurative painting titled "Fertility Goddesses" by renowned Denver modernist Edward Marecak (1919-1993) features three stylized nude female f...
Category

1950s Folk Art Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Resue the Children, Family in Horror Magazine Illustration
Located in Miami, FL
This work is remarkable for its intense dramatic lighting effects and wide-angle composition. Very few artists conceived and executed with acutely dramatic light in the arc of art hi...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Gouache

18th Century Portrait Flamish School Character Oil on Canvas Black Orange White
Located in Sanremo, IT
A late 17th/early 18th century Flemish painting measuring 90 x 70 cm without frame and 100 x 80 cm with a contemporary frame. An important characteristic of this painting is its str...
Category

Early 18th Century Flemish School Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Portrait of a Gentleman
Located in London, GB
Oil on canvas Image size: 17 x 23 1/2 inches (43 x 60 cm) Contemporary William Kent hand made frame
Category

18th Century Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Glamorous Redhead Iconic Mid-Century Illustration
Located in Miami, FL
Glamorous Redhead is a poster-like iconic image that sums up an era in American visual history - The 1950s. Al Parker is a giant in the history of American Illustration. He possess...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Gouache

Dipinto post impressionista figurativo toscano del XX secolo
Located in Florence, IT
il dipinto (olio su tela 44.5 x 35 cm; with cornice in legno 64 x 54,5) è firmato Maccari in basso a sinistra e titolato "L'insidia" e datato 1956 a penna sul retro. La scena raffigu...
Category

1950s Post-Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Portraits of Two Ladies, Pair of Portraits, Young Woman, Demarteau after Vincent
By Gilles Demarteau
Located in Greven, DE
Bust portrait of two young girls. Colour engraving in crayon manner after François-André Vincent. each 50.8 x 37.4 cm. Circa 1788, Leymarie 662, IFF 6, 74. This sheet is a typical ex...
Category

18th Century Romantic Portrait Paintings

Materials

Handmade Paper

Fallen Man - Golden Age of Illustration
Located in Miami, FL
Saturday Evening Post, Story Illustration Depicts Connecticut train station with possible drunk commuter being assisted by good samaritan Signed lower left Provenance: Illustration ...
Category

1950s American Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Illustration Board

Portrait of Woman with Muff, XVIIIth century
Located in Milan, IT
Oil painting on canvas. Venetian school of the eighteenth century. The portrait proposes the figure of a young woman wearing an everyday dress, but embellished with spotted fur...
Category

18th Century Other Art Style Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Portrait Of William Beekman Of New York, 18th Century American School
Located in Blackwater, GB
Portrait Of William Beekman Of New York, 18th Century American School Large 18th Century American School portrait of a William Beekman of New York, oil on canvas. Excellent qualit...
Category

18th Century Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Sexy French Cabaret Dancers - Folies Bergere Pulp Paperback Book Cover
Located in Miami, FL
Campy and sexy illustration of two French chorus girls for the mid-century Avon paperback Les Girls. Story of the Folies Bergere Unsigned and unframed. George Ziel...
Category

1950s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Oil, Board

Nylons and Bric-a-Brac by Orovida Pissarro - Oil painting
Located in London, GB
*UK BUYERS WILL PAY AN ADDITIONAL 20% VAT ON TOP OF THE ABOVE PRICE Nylons and Bric-a-Brac by Orovida Pissarro (1893-1968) Oil on canvas 73 x 60 cm (28 ³/₄ x 23 ⁵/₈ inches) Signed and dated upper right Orovida 1951 Provenance Estate of the artist With John Bensusan-Butt, cousin of the artist G Hassell, 25th November 1988 With John Noott, 10th June 1992 Literature K L Erickson, Orovida Pissarro: Painter and Print-Maker with A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, (doctoral thesis), Oxford, 1992, Appendices, no. 141 (illustrated) Exhibition London, Redfern Gallery, Recent Paintings: Orovida, 3rd-26th January 1952, no. 51 Artist biography Orovida Camille Pissarro, Lucien and Esther Pissarro’s only child, was the first woman in the Pissarro family as well as the first of her generation to become an artist. Born in Epping, England in 1893, she lived and worked predominantly in London where she became a prominent member of several British arts clubs and societies. She first learned to paint in the Impressionist style of her father, but after a brief period of formal study with Walter Sickert in 1913 she renounced formal art schooling. Throughout her career, Orovida always remained outside of any mainstream British art movements. Much to Lucien's disappointment she soon turned away from naturalistic painting and developed her own unusual style combining elements of Japanese, Chinese, Persian and Indian art. Her rejection of Impressionism, which for the Pissarro family had become a way of life, together with the simultaneous decision to drop her famous last name and simply use Orovida as a ‘nom de peintre’, reflected a deep desire for independence and distance from the weight of the family legacy. Orovida's most distinctive and notable works were produced from the period of 1919 to 1939 using her own homemade egg tempera applied in thin, delicate washes to silk, linen or paper and sometimes embellished with brocade borders. These elegant and richly decorative works generally depict Eastern, Asian and African subjects...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Vintage Mid-Century Modern Swedish Oil Framed Painting - Portrait in Sepia
Located in Bristol, GB
PORTRAIT IN SEPIA Size: 72 x 56 cm (including frame) Oil on Board A large and striking mid century modernist portrait in oil, painted onto board. With a very distinctive dark sepia...
Category

1950s Expressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Newsweek Cover , Visitor from the Kremlin, Russia - Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan
Located in Miami, FL
The work is in excellent condition and meticulously rendered in a photo-realistic style. It showcases the artist's high-level sense of design. Newsweek could hire any artist in the...
Category

1950s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Gouache

Ice Cream Picnic by Orovida Pissarro - Oil painting
Located in London, GB
Ice Cream Picnic by Orovida Pissarro (1893-1968) Oil on board 101 x 76 cm (39 ¾ x 29 ⅞ inches) Signed and dated lower left Orovida 1953 Provenance Richard Pissarro, gifted by the ar...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Portrait of a Young Girl Oil Painting 20th Century
Located in London, GB
Circle of Thomas Derrick British 1885 - 1954 Oil on panel Image size: 21 1/2 x 14 inches (55 x 36 cm) Hand made frame
Category

1950s Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

The Fortune Teller by Orovida Pissarro - Oil painting
Located in London, GB
*UK BUYERS WILL PAY AN ADDITIONAL 20% VAT ON TOP OF THE ABOVE PRICE The Fortune Teller by Orovida Pissarro (1893-1968) Oil on canvas 60 x 73 cm (23 ⁵/₈ x 28 ³/₄ inches) Signed and d...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Charles Laughton, Time magazine cover Illustration, March 31, 1952
Located in Miami, FL
Archivally Matted to 17.75 x 16.75 inches Signed lower left
Category

1950s American Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Gouache

Woman in Horror and Terror at Gunpoint
Located in Miami, FL
Signed lower right. Inscribed on the reverse 'My first color illustration, Nov. 1954.' Work is unframed, Film Noir in paint
Category

1950s American Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Woman Baking, Redbook Illustration, Mid - Century
Located in Miami, FL
Signed lower right, unframed - Interior Illustration for Redbook Magazine
Category

1950s American Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Gouache

Prize Bulls, Farmer & Owner, 18th Century
Located in Blackwater, GB
Prize Bulls, Farmer & Owner, 18th Century Early French School Oil On Panel Fine 18th century French School prize bull scene with the farmer and owner, oil on panel. Very early prize bull scene with a pair of bulls accompanied by their owner and the farmer. Excellent detail with influences of Paulus Potter...
Category

18th Century Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Le Sommeil
By Jean-Pierre Alaux
Located in Miami, FL
Early Surrealist work from 1957 the heyday of Surrealism - where a young blond girl caught in a dream like state hugs a mountain that has a profile of a man's face. Work is framed in...
Category

1950s Surrealist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Oil

Flower Girl in a Paris Cabaret
Located in Saint-Ouen, FR
DIEY Yves (1892-1984) Flower Girl at the Paris Opera circa 1950 Oil on canvas signed low right Montparnasse Frame by Gault (Paris) Dimensions canvas : 65 X 5...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Tales of the Arabian Nights with Flying Carpet - Random House Gustaf Tenggren
By Gustaf Tenggren
Located in Miami, FL
Gustaf Tenggren- Attributed This masterfully designed and graphic interpretation of the Arabian Nights saga features a monumental figural profile while small figures float above on a magic carpet. Gustaf Tenggren (American 1896-1970) Attributed - We are not certain if Tenggren did this work. There is stylistic evidence to support Tenggren. It's the brilliance factor of how he assembles all the elements of the work and composes it into a cogent and readable form. This says Tenggen. As a former New York advertising agency art director, I have seen artists work in different styles. Usually this is not the case but great artist can do it. Their styles can change but the brilliance remains. Untitled Untitled 1957 Gouache on illustration board - Unframed Not signed 9 x 7.25 live - 10.5 x 9.5 board Original book illustration...
Category

1950s Art Deco Portrait Paintings

Materials

Gouache

Untitled
Located in Barcelona, BARCELONA
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Paper, Mixed Media

Portrait of a Gentleman Commoner at Oxford, 18th Century Oil on Canvas
By James Northcote b.1746
Located in London, GB
James Northcote Portrait of a Gentleman Commoner at Oxford Oil on canvas Image size: 30 x 25 inches (76 x 63.5 cm) Original gilt frame This painting is a comparatively rare example ...
Category

18th Century English School Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Bonnie B. Paint Book Cover
By Elizabeth Voss
Located in Miami, FL
Elizabeth Voss was a top mod-century illustrator at Merrill Company and was a major figure in Children's Art and Children's Illustration Published by Merrill Company Publishers, Co...
Category

1950s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Gouache

Love Story Couple in Romantic Bliss Illustration - Mid Century
Located in Miami, FL
A handsome man and a beautiful woman are depicted in a rapturous pose. Their bodies are intertwined with each other and with the surrounding floral elements. This masterfully render...
Category

1950s Romantic Portrait Paintings

Materials

Gouache, Pencil, Graphite

SALVADOR DE REGIL 1954 Portrait of Marian Virginia Schuster - Surrealist Artist
Located in Rancho Santa Fe, CA
Marian Schuster was 19 years old in 1954 and attended City College San Francisco where she studied Art. In the old school, Victorian, San Francisco, moneyed household that she was r...
Category

1950s American Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Portrait of a Bewigged Gentleman
By Vittore Ghislandi
Located in New York, NY
Vittore Ghislandi, called Fra Galgario Provenance: Robert L. and Bertina Suida Manning, New York, ca. 1966-1996 Private Collection, USA Exhibited: “Eighteenth Century European Pai...
Category

18th Century Baroque Portrait Paintings

Materials

Copper

Princess and Prince, Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina Fairy Tales
Located in Miami, FL
Italian illustrator Gianni Benvenuti paints a charming fantasy scene. It's of an extreme closeup of a tiny crowned and winged Prince and Princess They are standing upright in a dand...
Category

1950s Surrealist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Gouache

Love at War, Lovers in a troubled moment . Handsome men and beautiful women.
Located in Miami, FL
Jon Whitcomb was know for is dipictions of Handsome men and glamous women. Most likely for a major newsstand magazine like. Cosmopolitan, McCall's and Pl...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Gouache

Portrait of Mythological Figure
Located in Miami, FL
Works on Paper, watercolor, gouache, and pencil on paper Robert L. B. Tobin Foundation San Antonio, Texas initialed in cartouche bottom center
Category

1950s Surrealist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Gouache

Blue Collar Gritty Truck Driver with Tiger - Color field meets Social Realism
Located in Miami, FL
Gritty working class truck driver with tiger painting on truck door, is rendered in a flat and quick style with rapid brushstrokes defining the trucker. The tiger is painted in a t...
Category

1950s Color-Field Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Classic 1950s Husband and Wife and Gagged Parrot, Esquire Magazine Illustration
Located in Miami, FL
Juliette Kida Renault (as JKR) Esquire Magazine Illustration Original Art (Hearst, c. 1950s). "He said his first word to-day". A fixture of Esquire ...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Watercolor

Caught! Young Girl uses Doctors Bag to Patch Up her Doll - Alexander Sharpe Ross
Located in Miami, FL
Alexander Sharpe Ross is an artist of consummate skill and wit. This painting captures a young girl in a doctor's office without permission. A p...
Category

1950s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Love Story, Illustration for the Saturday Evening Post
Located in Miami, FL
An illustrator for Time, Life, Look, True, True West, Saturday Evening Post, Good Housekeeping, Readers Digest, and others, he also painted for adverti...
Category

1950s American Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Gouache

Portrait Paintings for Sale on 1stDibs

An elegant and sophisticated decorative touch in any living space, portrait paintings have remained popular throughout the years and are widely loved pieces of art for display in many homes today.

Portrait paintings are at least as old as ancient Egypt, where realistic, lifelike depictions of the recently deceased — commonly known as “mummy portraits” — were painted on wooden panels and affixed to mummies as part of the burial tradition.

For centuries, painters have used portraiture as a means of expressing a subject’s nobility, societal status and authority. Portraits were given as gifts in Renaissance Europe, and a portrait artist might have been commissioned to help mark a significant occasion such as a wedding or a promotion to high office. Prior to the advent of photography, which eventually replaced painted portraits as a quicker and more efficient way of capturing a person’s essence, the subject of a portrait had to sit for hours until the painter had finished. And during the 18th century in particular, if an artist commissioned for a portrait struggled with how to adequately memorialize and capture a subject’s likeness, sometimes a portrait painting wasn’t completed for up to a year.

Whether it’s part of the gallery-style approach to your living-room or dining-room walls or merely inspiration as you devise an eye-grabbing color scheme in your home, a portrait painting is a timeless decorative object for any interior. A landscape painting or sculpture might give you the kind of insight into a specific region of the world or a different culture that you can ascertain only through art. Similarly, when you take the time to learn about the subject of a portrait painting that you bring into your home — the sitter’s history, the relationship between the sitter and the artist should one exist, the story of how the portrait came to be — that work can become intensely personal in addition to its place as an object for an art-hungry corner of your apartment or house.

On 1stDibs, visit a vast collection of famous portrait paintings or works by emerging artists. Search by medium to find the right portrait paintings for your home in oil paint, synthetic resin paint and more. Find portrait paintings in a variety of styles, too, including contemporary, Impressionist and Pop art, or search by artist to find unique works created by painters such as Mark Beard, Steve Kaufman and Montse Valdés.

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