Skip to main content

Portrait Paintings

8
to
148
289
232
254
32
392
113
17
107
149
144
72
52
Overall Height
to
Overall Width
to
93
86
60
48
27
23
17
13
6
3
2
1
443
299
252
158
144
123
56
52
41
32
25
22
18
14
12
9
7
6
6
6
822
1,249
3,589
8,111
114
86
156
220
168
255
191
275
380
15
11
8
7
5
486
386
196
190
98
Portrait Paintings For Sale
Period: 1970s
Period: 1950s
Lovely American Post Impressionist Oil Painting - A Young Girl Pouring Tea, 1956
Located in Baltimore, MD
This is not your typical child’s portrait. Young Ellen Warfield is steadily pouring tea or coffee in a proper manner that certainly conforms to societal expectations of the 1950’s. ...
Category

1950s Post-Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

'Woman in Aqua', De Young, Oakland Museum, LACMA, CWS, AWS, San Francisco
By Jade Fon Woo
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower right, 'Jade Fon' for Jade Fon Woo (American, 1911-1983) and painted circa 1955. A charming and character-filled study of a young woman, shown brimming with life and h...
Category

1950s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Contemporary Original Abstracted Figurative Silkscreen - Life's Frustration
Located in Soquel, CA
Contemporary Original Abstracted Figurative of Profile and Detailed Eye Silkscreen - Life's Frustration A compelling abstracted silkscreen of profile of man with detail of his eye w...
Category

1970s Contemporary Portrait Paintings

Materials

Paper, India Ink

Nude woman oil on canvas painting portrait
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Joan Palet (1911 - 1996) - Nude - Oil on canvas Oil measures 65x81 cm. Frameless. Joan Palet was born in Barcelona on March 28, 1911 in a family of sculptors and wood carvers. He b...
Category

1970s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Surreal scene Brazil oil on board painting surrealist
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Gustavo Úbeda (1930-1994) - Surrealist scene, Brazil - Oil on panel Oil measures 61x91 cm. Frameless. The painting by Gustavo Úbeda Romero (Herencia, 1930 – Sao Paulo, 1994) comes from a family of painters by aesthetics and by kinship. Brother of the painter Agustín Úbeda and the photographer Ángel...
Category

1970s Surrealist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

'Radiant Muse: Inspired Cubist Portrait', German School (circa 1970s)
Located in London, GB
'Radiant Muse: Inspired Cubist Portrait', oil on board, the German School (circa 1970s). A very alluring painting with warm earth tone hues both vibrant and muted. Clearly inspired b...
Category

1970s Cubist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Abstract Prism: Radiant Cubist Figure
By STM
Located in London, GB
'Abstract Prism: Radiant Cubist Figure', oil on board, by STM (circa 1970s). A marvellous late mid-century, medium-sized painting by an artist with the initials STM. Clearly inspired...
Category

1970s Cubist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Nude woman oil on canvas painting portrait
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Joan Palet (1911 - 1996) - Nude - Oil on canvas Oil measures 81x65 cm. Frameless. Joan Palet was born in Barcelona on March 28, 1911 in a family of sculptors and wood carvers. He b...
Category

1970s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Woman posing oil on canvas painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Joan Palet (1911 - 1996) - Woman in pink- Oil on canvas Oil measures 61x50 cm. Frame size 67x56 cm. Joan Palet was born in Barcelona on March 28, 1911 in a family of sculptors and w...
Category

1970s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Self portrait oil on board painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Joan Palet (1911 - 1996) - Self portrait- Oil on board Oil measures 36x31 cm. Frame size 49x44 cm. Joan Palet was born in Barcelona on March 28, 1911 in a family of sculptors and wo...
Category

1970s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Board, Oil

La Baloneuse Framed Signed Painting
By Emile Wegelin
Located in Rochester Hills, MI
Emile Wegelin: Capturing the Essence of Nature.  Painting on Hardboard   Size-Width Size-Height: 32'' x 25'' Signed in Ink Emile Wegelin (1875-1962) devoted his life to paintin...
Category

1950s Post-Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Woman with paipai fan oil on canvas painting portrait
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Joan Palet (1911 - 1996) - Female figure - Oil on canvas Oil measures 81x65 cm. Frameless. Joan Palet was born in Barcelona on March 28, 1911 in a family of sculptors and wood carve...
Category

1970s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Vintage Mid-Century Swedish Nude Portrait Framed Oil Painting - Female Form
Located in Bristol, GB
FEMALE FORM Size: 75 x 56 cm 29.5 x 22.04 inches (including frame) Oil on Canvas A brilliantly executed mid-century modernist nude study, painted in oil onto canvas. In this compo...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Female figure woman oil on canvas painting portrait
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Joan Palet (1911 - 1996) - Female figure - Oil on canvas Oil measures 27x22 cm. Frame measures 44x39 cm. Joan Palet was born in Barcelona on March 28, 1911 in a family of sculptors ...
Category

1970s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Portrait of a Woman
Located in Wilton Manors, FL
Elizabeth Osborne (American/Philadelphia, b. 1936) Untitled (Portrait of a Lady), 1974. Watercolor painting on paper, signed and dated lower right. Unframed. Size: 22.75'' x 30...
Category

1970s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Watercolor, Rag Paper

Patrick Boudon. Inner Family. Post-war Expressionism. 1970s.
Located in Firenze, IT
Patrick Boudon. Inner Family. Post-war Expressionism. 1970s. Patrick Boudon. Art Informel. Ecole de Paris. Technique: oil on cardboard. This painting by Patrick Boudon from the 197...
Category

1970s Expressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Cardboard

Woman portrait oil on canvas painting pitxot
By Antoni Pitxot
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Oil on canvas by Antoni Pitxot. Canvas measurements: 41 X 33 Cm Measures with frame: 52 X 44 Cm Dalí's friend and collaborator and member of a family of artists, the artistic produc...
Category

1970s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Family Seated on a Bench at the Port
Located in London, GB
'Family Seated on a Bench at the Port', oil on board, by François Diana (circa 1970s). A painting with a very wholesome, homespun theme harks back to a more innocent time. A family i...
Category

1970s Expressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Woman posing mixed media painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Jordi Curós Ventura (1930-2007) - Woman Mixed technique on canvas cardboard. Work measurements 46x38 cm. Frameless. Jordi Curós Ventura (Olot, Girona, March 4, 1930) is a Spanish pa...
Category

1970s Fauvist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media

The Harlequin
By Richard Mandin
Located in London, GB
'The Harlequin', oil on board, by Richard Mandin (1952). Harlequin's traditional diamond patterned costume, bicorn hat, and the wooden sword that denoted his buffoonery have appealed...
Category

1950s Expressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

The sisters young women original oil on canvas painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Frame size 98x117 cm. Ramon Aguilar i Moré (Barcelona, ​​1924-Barcelona, ​​September 23, 2015) was a Spanish painter. His work was influenced by the expressionist movement, although...
Category

1970s Fauvist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Expressionist Judaica French Israeli Modernist Art Oil Painting Rabbi, Musician
Located in Surfside, FL
This is a bright, colorful oil painting of a Hasidic Musician in the the holy city of Jerusalem, Israel 1972, Oil on canvas, 29 X 26 inches Hand signed and dated. George Cheme...
Category

1970s Expressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Vicente Cristellys, Oil on canvas "Gina Lollobrigida", Late 1950s
Located in Saint Amans des cots, FR
Oil on canvas by Vicente CRISTELLYS (1898-1970), School of Paris, late 1950s. "Lolo", portrait of Gina Lollobrigida in Notre-Dame de Paris (film). Arriving in Paris during the 1920s, Vicente Cristellys settled in Montparnasse like many of his colleagues from the Ecole de Paris. He paints characters and scenes largely inspired by his native Spain. It was after a bohemian period that he began to illustrate cinema posters and he managed to settle in the Parisian cinematographic milieu. For example, he will sign posters for The Big Sleep, The Man in The iron mask...
Category

1950s Neo-Expressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Devil Emerges from Surrealist Voodoo Drum - Sans titre (Diable)
Located in Miami, FL
An image of a horned devil with pointy claws and bat-like wings emerges from a Voodoo drum. He has with arms stretched out like a Christ figure. The drum grows out of a yellow plant-...
Category

1970s Surrealist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Masonite, Oil

Woman posing with guitar mixed media painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Jordi Curós Ventura (1930-2007) - Woman Mixed technique on canvas cardboard. Work measurements 46x38 cm. Frameless. Jordi Curós Ventura (Olot, Girona, March 4, 1930) is a Spanish pa...
Category

1970s Fauvist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media

Woman posing mixed media painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Jordi Curós Ventura (1930-2007) - Woman Mixed technique on canvas cardboard. Work measurements 35x27 cm. Frame size 40x32 cm. Jordi Curós Ventura (Olot, Girona, March 4, 1930) is a ...
Category

1970s Fauvist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media

Portrait of a Lady, Oil Paint on Cardboard 1971 by Fritz Edler
Located in Berlin, DE
Oil paint on cardboard 1971 by Fritz Edler, Germany ( 1894-1994 ). Signed and dated lower left: Edler 71 Verso portrait of a young woman. Estate stamps on top- and lower right. Frame...
Category

1970s Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Cardboard

Woman posing with guitar mixed media painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Jordi Curós Ventura (1930-2007) - Woman Mixed technique on canvas cardboard. Work measurements 46x38 cm. Frameless. Jordi Curós Ventura (Olot, Girona, March 4, 1930) is a Spanish pa...
Category

1970s Fauvist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media

Woman posing mixed media painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Jordi Curós Ventura (1930-2007) - Woman Mixed technique on canvas cardboard. Work measurements 46x38 cm. Frameless. Jordi Curós Ventura (Olot, Girona, March 4, 1930) is a Spanish pa...
Category

1970s Fauvist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media

Woman posing mixed media painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Jordi Curós Ventura (1930-2007) - Woman Mixed technique on canvas cardboard. Work measurements 46x38 cm. Frameless. Jordi Curós Ventura (Olot, Girona, March 4, 1930) is a Spanish pa...
Category

1970s Fauvist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media

Woman posing mixed media painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Jordi Curós Ventura (1930-2007) - Woman Mixed technique on canvas cardboard. Work measurements 46x38 cm. Frameless. Jordi Curós Ventura (Olot, Girona, March 4, 1930) is a Spanish pa...
Category

1970s Fauvist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media

" Mother " Child, Mother, Mother's Day oil cm 67 x 100
Located in Torino, IT
Child,Baby,Maternity,child,Mother,Green,Window,spring,russian art GLEB SAVINOV (Charkev, 1915 – St. Petersburg, 2000) Works by Gleb Savinov can be found in various private collect...
Category

1970s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

"Joni" - Mid Century Modern Portrait of a Girl in Yellow Dress in Oil on Canvas
Located in Soquel, CA
"Joni" - Portrait of a Girl in a Yellow Dress in Oil on Canvas Skillful portrait of a young girl by Morris Zirlin (American, 1913-1990). A young girl with wide brown eyes poses for ...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Stretcher Bars

“Portrait of a Man”
Located in Southampton, NY
Powerful oil on board original painting of a portrait of a man’s head by the American National Academy artist John R. Grabach. Signed lower left, “John R.Grabach N.A.” Signed verso ...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Virgin Mary and child Jesus oil on board painting Christ
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Josep Lloveras Feliu (1922-2014) - Virgin Mary and child Jesus - Oil on panel Oil measurements 60x49 cm. Frame measurements 68x57 cm. Josep Lloveras y Feliu, was a painter and sculp...
Category

1950s Fauvist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Portrait of Boy and Guitar Original oil by Angeli - Italy circa 1960
Located in Soquel, CA
Portrait of Boy and Guitar Original oil by Angeli - Italy circa 1960 Classical portrait of a young boy ad his guitar by Angeli, an unknown Italian painter (Italy, 20th Century). Roc...
Category

1950s Portrait Paintings

Materials

Linen, Oil, Stretcher Bars

Woman posing mixed media painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Jordi Curós Ventura (1930-2007) - Woman Mixed technique on canvas cardboard. Work measurements 35x27 cm. Frame 40x32 cm. Jordi Curós Ventura (Olot, Girona, March 4, 1930) is a Spani...
Category

1970s Fauvist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media

Woman posing mixed media painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Jordi Curós Ventura (1930-2007) - Woman Mixed technique on canvas cardboard. Work measurements 35x27 cm. Frame 40x32 cm. Jordi Curós Ventura (Olot, Girona, March 4, 1930) is a Spani...
Category

1970s Fauvist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media

French Impressionist mid century cafe scene of two women seated in a Cafe
Located in Woodbury, CT
Francois Gall, Hungarian by birth, became an impressionist painter in the pure French tradition after he moved to Paris in 1936. He was born in Kolozsvar in the former  region of  Tr...
Category

1950s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

School of Paris, Barbara, Oil on Canvas, 1950s
Located in Saint Amans des cots, FR
Oil on canvas dating from the 50s whose subject strangely resembles Barbara, the French singer. If it is really her, I am unable to confirm that she played the guitar, or that it is ...
Category

1950s Neo-Expressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Woman posing acrylic painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Jordi Curós Ventura (1930-2007) - Woman Acrylic on canvas on cardboard. Work measurements 55x46 cm. Frameless. Jordi Curós Ventura (Olot, Girona, March 4, 1930) is a Spanish painter...
Category

1970s Fauvist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Portrait of Wife
Located in Scottsdale, AZ
Beautiful impressionistic portrait of Soviet master, Aleksei Belykh's, wife. Belykh was a Russian artist from Sverdlovsk. This painting is signed and dated and in great condition. ...
Category

1950s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Madonna. Oil on canvas, 53x48 cm
Located in Riga, LV
Madonna. Oil on canvas, 53x48 cm Laimdots Murnieks has said: "I am a sunny artist. The sun and a woman are the center of the world. It is not for nothing that the sun always comes w...
Category

1970s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Portrait. Oil on canvas, 64x50 cm
Located in Riga, LV
Portrait. Oil on canvas, 64x50 cm Laimdots Murnieks has said: "I am a sunny artist. The sun and a woman are the center of the world. It is not for nothing that the sun always comes ...
Category

1970s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Adriana Pincherle (1905- 1996). A lady with a turban and green shadows.
Located in Firenze, IT
Adriana Pincherle, (1905, Rome - 1996, Florence). A lady with a turban and green shadows in a landscape. Italian female painter, active in Rome and from 1943 in Florence. Painting signed and dated lower right: Adriana Pincherle. 1973. Oil painting on canvas. The simple composition, which represents a woman from behind, bears the influence of Matisse's avant-garde style, with bold and refined color combinations. The shape is created with color, creating an almost surreal and highly expressive effect. The painter once said: "My painting has always been figurative, not realistic. In this sense I felt very similar to the Informal movement, which, fundamentally, pushed my passion for color to the extreme." FREE SHIPPING in Italy and Europe Artist Biography: Pincherle Adriana Rome 25 December 1905 - Florence 8 January 1996 Adriana was born in Rome on 25 December 1905, into a family in which two cultures were intertwined: the Jewish one of her father, the engineer Carlo Pincherle, of Venetian origins and in love with painting, and the Catholic one of her mother, Isa di she. De Marsanich, a noble but decayed Hungarian. Adriana is the eldest child and two years older than her brother Alberto, known to the literary world under the pseudonym Alberto Moravia As Pincherle herself says about her, as a child she spent hours admiring her father who painted watercolours, and it was perhaps then that her interest in drawing and above all her particular sensitivity towards color was born. Thus, having completed her classical studies, she began to attend the "ladies" atelier of the engraver Alfredo Petrucci and the free nude courses at the Academy, where she met Mimmo Spadini and Scipione, and came into contact with Roman art. In 1931 she made her debut at the collective "First Roman exhibition of female art" at the "Galleria di Roma", while the following year, at the same gallery, she exhibited a solo show together with Corrado Cagli, already attracting the attention of critics, famous comment by Longhi, cited several times by Pincherle herself, who prefers the "sissy" between the two artists. As evidence of the results achieved by Adriana since her first works, we remember that among her works presented in 1932 there was also the famous "Standing Self-Portrait", now in the Uffizi Pincherle's growth passes through places and periods common to both the Roman School and the school of painters of the via Cavour group (Mafai, Raphaël, Scipione), with tangents and deviations, but his pictorial research arrives at original solutions independent of any label . Fundamental to the maturation of her art was her stay in Paris in 1933, in which Pincherle admired and studied closely the Fauves, Renoir and in particular Matisse. In the same year she exhibited for the first time in Florence at the Sala d'arte delle Nazioni with Milena Barilli...
Category

1970s Fauvist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

ASTRACT COMPOSITION - Oil on canvas signed Salvatore Benincasa, Italy 1970s
Located in Napoli, IT
Delightful brightly colored oil on canvas signed Salvatore Benincasa, with frame
Category

1970s Abstract Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Vintage Mid-Century Modern Portrait Oil Painting - Portrait of a Troubled Soul
Located in Bristol, GB
PORTRAIT OF A TROUBLED SOUL Size: 65.5 x 54 cm (including frame) Oil on Canvas This mid-century expressive and emotive oil portrait delves into the depths of the human psyche with a...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

“Mother and Child” Early Figurative Portrait Painting of a Black Woman and Child
Located in Houston, TX
Early figurative portrait painting by Houston-based artist Buford Evans. The work features a black woman dressed in a green dress gingerly caressing her young child. Signed by the ar...
Category

1970s Naturalistic Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Panel

“God Save the Children” Early Figurative Portrait of an Anguished Black Man
Located in Houston, TX
Early figurative portrait painting by Houston-based artist Buford Evans. The work features a black man looking to the sky with an anguished expression on his face as a young child cl...
Category

1970s Naturalistic Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Panel

“Girl with Cat”
Located in Southampton, NY
Evocative original oil on canvas painting by the Welsh artist, John Bowen. Signed lower left. Condition is very good. Circa 1970. The artist uses the light to capture the beauty of the young girl looking directly at us with her cat resting in her lap. The painting is housed in a dark wood frame with narrow liner of the same time period of the artwork. Overall framed measurement is 41 by 29 inches. Provenance: A Sarasota, Florida estate. John Bowen (1914–2006) Carmarthenshire Museums Service Collection Painter, born in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire. After attending Llanelli and Swansea Schools of Art he taught at Llanelli School of Art, 1939–60, also at the Boys’ Grammar School there apart from wartime service in the Royal Air Force. He was an artist member of SWG and also showed WAC and at the Royal National Eisteddfod. In 1968 he had a retrospective at Parc Howard Mansion, Llanelli. Painter of landscapes in Britain and abroad and still life, in oil and watercolour whose work is in many public collections, including WAC and Newport Art Gallery and Museum. Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company) His work was influenced by some of the twentieth century's greatest artists such as Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall. His paintings are in the permanent collections of Parc Howard Museum...
Category

1970s Contemporary Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Still Life with Plants
Located in Germantown, NY
Stuart Bigley is an artist based in New York’s beautiful Hudson Valley. He has been making and showing his artwork for over 40 years. During this time he also co-founded and ran th...
Category

1970s Portrait Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Paper

Reclining Nude Lady Model 1970's French Modernist Painting Provence Collection
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
The Artists Model Nude Lady Model French School, circa 1970's oil painting on card, unframed size: 25.5 x 18 inches condition: overall very good, a very few light markings to the su...
Category

1970s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Woman portrait oil on canvas painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Antoni Vives Fierro (1940) - Portrait of a woman - Oil on canvas Oil measurements 46x38 cm. Frame measurements 67x59 cm. He was born in Barcelona in 1940. He is a versatile painter ...
Category

1970s Contemporary Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique Exotic Female Portrait Oil Painting
Located in Douglas Manor, NY
3728 Oil on artist board Set in a custom frame Image size 12.5x9.5"
Category

1970s Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

At the autumn garden. Oil on cardboard, 80 x 57 cm
Located in Riga, LV
At the autumn garden. Oil on cardboard, 80x57 cm Janis Rikmanis (1901.5.IV – 1968.25.III) graduated Figurative painting studio of Latvia Art academy (1931). He took part in exhibiti...
Category

1950s Expressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Cardboard

Reclining Nude Lady Model 1970's French Modernist Painting Provence Collection
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
The Artists Model Nude Lady Model French School, circa 1970's oil painting on card, unframed size: 19.75 x 25.5 inches condition: overall very good, a very few light markings to the...
Category

1970s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Daughter's portrait. Cardboard, oil, 98x77 cm
Located in Riga, LV
Daughter's portrait. Cardboard, oil, 98x77 cm Laimdots Murnieks has said: "I am a sunny artist. The sun and a woman are the center of the world. It is not for nothing that the sun a...
Category

1970s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Cardboard

Portrait. Cardboard, oil, 47x45 cm
Located in Riga, LV
Portrait. Cardboard, oil, 47x45 cm Laimdots Murnieks has said: "I am a sunny artist. The sun and a woman are the center of the world. It is not for nothing that the sun always comes...
Category

1970s Modern Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Cardboard

Shop Antique and Vintage Portrait Paintings

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.

Recently Viewed

View All