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Impressionist Portrait Paintings

IMPRESSIONIST STYLE

Emerging in 19th-century France, Impressionist art embraced loose brushwork and plein-air painting to respond to the movement of daily life. Although the pioneers of the Impressionist movement — Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir — are now household names, their work was a radical break with an art scene led and shaped by academic traditions for around two centuries. These academies had oversight of a curriculum that emphasized formal drawing, painting and sculpting techniques and historical themes.

The French Impressionists were influenced by a group of artists known as the Barbizon School, who painted what they witnessed in nature. The rejection of pieces by these artists and the later Impressionists from the salons culminated in a watershed 1874 exhibition in Paris that was staged outside of the juried systems. After a work of Monet’s was derided by a critic as an unfinished “impression,” the term was taken as a celebration of their shared interest in capturing fleeting moments as subject matter, whether the shifting weather on rural landscapes or the frenzy of an urban crowd. Rather than the exacting realism of the academic tradition, Impressionist paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings represented how an artist saw a world in motion.

Many Impressionist painters were inspired by the perspectives in imported Japanese prints alongside these shifts in European painting — Édouard Manet drew on ukiyo-e woodblock prints and depicted Japanese design in his Portrait of Émile Zola, for example. American artists such as Mary Cassatt and William Merritt Chase, who studied abroad, were impacted by the work of the French artists, and by the late 19th century American Impressionism had its own distinct aesthetics with painters responding to the rapid modernization of cities through quickly created works that were vivid with color and light.

Find a collection of authentic Impressionist art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Impressionist
"Last Light, Rattvik" contemporary plein air oil painting of red barn in Sweden
Located in Sag Harbor, NY
Painted en plein air in Rattvik, Sweden, a red barn stands amidst a dirt road. This shaded dirt road is depicted not with many shades or brown, rather many shades of blue. A bright g...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

The Artists Model, Nude Impressionist Oil Painting
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
The Artists Model By J.B.Holmes, British 20th Century Oil painting on board, unframed Board size: 16 x 12 inches Captivating oil painting, showing a nude model being painted by anartist. There is a sense of relaxation in this portrait, with a radio on...
Category

20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Leopard Print Mother & Child, Street Art
By Rose Popay aka The Art Tart
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Leopard Print Woman, Pop Art, The Art Tart By Rose Popay, British artist under the pseudonym 'The Art Tart', 21st Century Signed by the artist on the lower right hand corner spray pa...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Spray Paint, Canvas

Mother and Child 1920s - with Newcomb Macklin Giltwood Frame
By H. Willard Ortlip
Located in Soquel, CA
Excellent figurative painting of a mother and child by H. Willard Ortlip (American, 20th Century), 1927. Signature and date lower left "H. Willard Ortlip 1927." Presented in a giltwo...
Category

1920s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Linen

Portrait of a Young Woman, Oil Painting on Canvas by George Kalmar
By Georg Kalmar
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Georg Kalmar (Austrian, 1913-1994) Title: Portrait of a Young Woman Year: circa 1975 Medium: Oil on Canvas Size: 43 in. x 27 in. ...
Category

1970s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Frances in Braids"
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork. Pastel portrait of artist's granddaughter. Complemented by original signed Harer frame. Illustra...
Category

1930s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Pastel

French Impressionist Oil Portrait Crossed Armed Posed Man Wearing A Black Hat
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Vintage French Oil Painting by Louise Alix (French, 1888-1980) *see notes below provenance stamp to the back oil painting on artist paper stuck on board, unframed measures: 7.5 hig...
Category

Mid-20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Elegante au Parc - French Impressionist School, Figure in Landscape
Located in Marlow, Buckinghamshire
A simply beautiful French Impressionist School oil on canvas of an elegant woman wearing a white blouse and black skirt and hat seated in a chair reading. Her parasol rests against t...
Category

Early 1900s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Light Refreshment - Nabis Oil, Seated Figures in Interior - Edouard Vuillard
Located in Marlow, Buckinghamshire
Signed figurative oil on board circa 1890 by French Nabis school painter Edouard Vuillard. The work depicts two seated ladies dressed in black with grey pinafores enjoying coffee together. Illustrated in the Catalogue Raisonne of Edouard Vuillard by Antoine Salomon and Guy Cogeval - Volume I, Page 229 - Reference IV-7 This striking work dates to between 1890 and 1891 which was without doubt Vuillard’s greatest decade as an artist. At this time the painter was working with the group of artist known as "Les Nabis" which included Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Paul Ranson, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Félix Vallotton, Paul Sérusier and Auguste Cazalis. The group played a large part in the transition from impressionism and academic art to abstract art, symbolism and the other early movements of modernism. They believed that a work of art was not a depiction of nature, but a synthesis of metaphors and symbols created by the artist. Signature: Signed lower right Dimensions: Framed: 19.25"x20.25" Unframed: 9.25"x10.25" Provenance: Renou et Poyet - Paris Roland, Browse & Delbanco - London (labels verso) c. 1955 The collection of Sir Alec Guinness Galerie Jan Krugier, Geneva - 1972 Nichido Gallery - Tokyo 1972 Private collection - Japan Christie's London - Impressionist & Modern Art - June 2016 Édouard Vuillard attended the Lycée Condorcet in Paris, where he made friends with Maurice Denis, Lugné-Poe, and Ker-Xavier Roussel, later his brother-in-law. He studied in Maillart’s studio; for six weeks came under the tutelage of Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris; and later under William Bouguereau and Robert at the Académie Julian, where he became closely linked with the Nabis group (from the Hebrew word for ‘prophet’). He met Marcel Proust in 1902. From 1908, he taught at the Académie Ranson. In 1937, he was elected member of the Institute. At first, Vuillard painted small subjects, disciplined and proficient, qualities for which the prestigious École Française was famous. His earliest still-lifes (1888) are astonishing in their decisiveness and subtlety. His empathy for the object had already compelled him to soften its appearance; the object, which, by virtue of its bright or glossy presence, remained the nonego and the ‘thing represented’ for so many others. ‘Intimacy’ developed immediately between the painter and this modest environment; inhabiting it every day enabled him to celebrate its splendour, and it was to remain his favourite environment. But he was already alternating between small portraits and still-lifes, which gained recognition because of their natural qualities and dignity of tone: a rare combination in a beginner. About 1890, influenced indirectly by Paul Gauguin, all the certainties which the self-styled Nabis painters had contented themselves with suddenly collapsed. Everything was called into question again: both the linear layout of the picture and its colour scheme; the choice of subject and its material aspect; its manufacture and its purpose. Vuillard’s paintings at that time show surprising, bold innovations and an arbitrary power, which one would expect 15 or 20 years later at the height of the Fauvist period. The preoccupation with an internal geometry set them apart from earlier studies. From then on, the paintings were based on forms, lines, and colours. Vuillard made concessions. He produced a portrait or interior with its furniture and its wallpapers, in which the family inhabiting it, evolves. Treated with flat areas of colour and solid shades of ochres, reds, blues, and saffron yellow, without modulation, they seem to prefigure certain paintings by Henri Matisse and Roger de La Fresnaye. In 1891, Vuillard painted an Elegant Lady, a silhouette seen from the back; a long vertical shape starting from the hair decorated with brown feathers; there is a kind of pink cloak, the tight and never-ending black skirt, erect in front of a half-open, bright orange door in a green wall, from where the light of another vertical shape emerges, which is bright yellow, and is reflected in red on the parquet at the feet of the elegant lady. This painting meets his concerns about the actual moment of creating ‘harmonies corresponding to our feeling’, and by virtue of its almost geometric structure, its drawing entirely free of detail, its light effects and colour harmonies, very much prefigures aspects of the future Abstraction movement and is oddly reminiscent of the final period of Nicolas de Staël. All too often, Vuillard is only admired in his role as the harmonist, the serene contemplator who combines an exquisite sense of nuance, rhythms, and values with the most acute observation. These singular investigations, these three-dimensional meditations including a table, a folding metal cot...
Category

1890s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

1929 Oil Painting of Handsome Man from Life Class
Located in Exton, PA
Fine oil painting on canvass depicting 2 views of a handsome man wearing a white shirt, in repose. The painting is oil on canvass by Marion Butler Ewald, Bucks County and Philadelph...
Category

1920s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Making Bubbles
By Joseph Henry Hatfield
Located in Missouri, MO
Joseph Henry Hatfield (American, 1863-1928) Making Bubbles Signed Lower Right 16 x 13 inches 23 x 19 inches At the turn of the century, Joseph Henry Hatfield was well known around C...
Category

Early 20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Finely Painted Antique American School Ballerina Portrait Framed Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American impressionist interior scene oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. No signature found.
Category

Early 1900s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Portrait of a Young Girl holding a Kitten, seated in a Summer Garden
Located in West Sussex, GB
Valentin Danilovitch Bernadski (1917-2011) Ukrainian Portrait of a Young Girl holding a Kitten, seated in a Summer Garden Oil on Canvas: 30 x 25 in. Frame 35 x 30 in. Signed in Cyr...
Category

1980s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Scissor Grinder, Late 19th Century Impressionist Painting
Located in Beachwood, OH
Frederick Carl Gottwald (1858-1941) Scissor Grinder, c. 1897 Oil on canvas Signed lower left 24 x 18 inches 28.5 x 22.5 inches, framed Exhibited: Boston, Massachusetts Art Exhibit, ...
Category

1890s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Rare Historical Children's Evening Dinner Party Signed Impressionist Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American impressionist painting. Watercolor on paper. Signed. Framed. Image size, 14L x 11H.
Category

1890s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Woman in Hat (Impressionist Oil on Canvas)
Located in New Orleans, LA
A lovely, richly colorful portrait painted with Impressionistic daubs by Polish artist Casimir Caziel (AKA Zielenkiewic). His style evolved over time to be more graphic and Cubistic,...
Category

Mid-20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Léon HERBO Vestale model portrait orientalist oriental woman costume french 19e
Located in PARIS, FR
Léon HERBO Templeuve (Belgium), 1850 – Ixelles, 1907 Oil on panel 46 x 35.5 cm (63 x 45 cm with the frame) Signed at the top right “Léon Herbo” Inscription “A miss Mengal / La vestal...
Category

1880s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Beautiful French Impressionist Oil Provencal Woodland Landscape view, framed
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Artist/ School: French School, circa 1930's Title: Provencal Landscape view through trees Medium: oil on board, framed Framed: 13.5 x 16.5 inches Board: 10.5 x 13.75 inches Prove...
Category

Early 20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

1960's Large French Portrait of Young Blonde Lady, Superb Frame, Signed Oil
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Artist/ School: Pierre PIGET (1907-1990), French. Signed lower left, dates to the 1960's period. Title: Portrait of a young blonde lady Medium: oil ...
Category

Mid-20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Fine 1890's French Impressionist Oil Painting Elegant Belle Epoque Figures
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Artist/ School: French School, circa 1890, circle of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French 1864-1901) Title: Elegant Figures dressed for an evening out, typical of the Belle Epoque Styl...
Category

Late 19th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Madonna
Located in Missouri, MO
Madonna by Louis Carl Hvasta (1913-1993) Unframed: 37" x 24" Framed: 47.75" x 34" Signed and Dated Lower Left Frame was Hand Made by the artist himself. A local Californian Artist, ...
Category

20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Panel, Oil

Abe Lincoln
Located in Missouri, MO
Abe Lincoln by Louis Carl Hvasta (1913-1993) Unframed: 24" x 18" Framed: 30.5" x 24.5" Signed and Dated Top Right Frame was Hand Made by the artist himself...
Category

20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Panel, Oil

Pope John 23rd in Cardinal Robe
Located in Missouri, MO
Pope John 23rd in Cardinal Robe by Louis Carl Hvasta (1913-1993) Unframed: 35" x 23" Framed: 43" x 31" Signed and Dated Lower Left Frame was Hand Made by the...
Category

20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Panel, Oil

The Potato Peeler by Meyer Claus
Located in Pasadena, CA
Claus Meyer was a German painter active during the turn of the 20th century. He is best known for his warm depictions of everyday life from the Medieval and Northern Renaissances per...
Category

19th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Modern Oil painting of Boys and Girl pointillism by Stevan Kissel
Located in Pasadena, CA
Born in 1932, Stevan Kissel is a listed, award winning painter born in New York City, New York, who eventually relocated to Loa Angeles, California, where he was active in the Los An...
Category

Mid-20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

1940's ENGLISH SIGNED OIL - PORTRAIT OF A LADY IN ELEGANT DRESS - GREENS & PINKS
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Artist/ School: Frank Graves (British 1913-2001), signed and dated 1946. Title: Portrait of the artists wife. Medium: oil painting on board, unframed. ...
Category

Mid-20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

19th Century French Impressionist Period Oil Painting - Portrait of Bearded Man
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Artist/ School: French School, late 19th century, indistinctly monogrammed upper left corner. Title: Portrait of a Bearded Man Medium: oil painting on canvas laid to board, unframe...
Category

Late 19th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

English mid- 20th century portrait of a Jazz Musician, circa 1930-40
Located in Woodbury, CT
Outstanding mid-20th-century portrait of a Jazz Musician. Harold Wilfred Yates, was born at West Ham, London on 26 June 1916, son of Wilfred David Yates (7 August 1890-1 April 1958), an amateur artist who worked as a cartoonist for the trade press, and his wife Elizabeth née Biggs (7 March 1890-3 September 1959), who married at West Ham in 1915. Harold studied for 18 months at Portsmouth School of Art 1930-1931 after which he joined a commercial studio as a figure painter but became disillusioned with the disciplines and began to paint abstract works in his spare time. He exhibited with the Artists International Association and the London Gallery...
Category

1930s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

"Portrait of little girl" Oil cm. 20 x 20 children, pink, russia
Located in Torino, IT
children, pink, russia,little girl GLEB SAVINOV (Charkev, 1915 – St. Petersburg, 2000) Works by Gleb Savinov can be found in various private collections in Europe, Japan, United S...
Category

1980s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

French Watercolour Breton School Mid 20th Century Fisherman
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Breton Fisherman by Henri Miloch (1898-1979) signed lower right edge watercolour painting, with gouache and some graphite on artist's paper, unframed measurement of frameable image...
Category

1960s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Watercolor, Gouache, Graphite

"Easter Hat" Impressionist Portrait of a Woman
Located in Houston, TX
Portrait of a women in a red dress with a straw hat. The portrait is in the style of famous Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani. The work is signed by the artist, titled and dated. Dim...
Category

1980s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Young Boy with Hat
Located in Long Island City, NY
An impressionist portrait of a young boy in winter wear. Artist: Laurent Marcel Salinas, French (1913 - 2010) Title: Young Boy with Hat Medium: Oil on C...
Category

1970s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Red Shawl
Located in Sofia, BG
"Red Shawl" is an impressionist painting, oil on linen by Maestro Iryna Kalyuzhna. The painting is unframed. “The impressions of Maestro Iryna Kalyuzhna's...
Category

2010s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Linen, Oil

Young British Woman, the Ellis Island Series, Laurent Marcel Salinas
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Laurent Marcel Salinas, French (1913 - 2010) Title: Young British Woman from the Ellis island Series, 1005 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed and dated Image Size: 23 x 17.5 inche...
Category

1990s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Italian Man from the Ellis Island Series by Laurent Marcel Salinas
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Laurent Marcel Salinas, French (1913 - 2010) Title: Italian Man from the Ellis island Series, 985 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed Size: 24 x 18 inches
Category

1990s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Large Reclining Nude Female
Located in Houston, TX
Lovely large reclining nude female painting by artist Oris Robertson. Artist Biography: Oris Robertson was a prolific visual artist, he started ...
Category

20th Century Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Young Vincent
Located in Brecon, Powys
A portrait of the artist long before his fractured life ended. Here we see the freshness & purity of the young van Gogh. An elemental lightness suffuses the piece in symbolic represe...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Auto Portrait
Located in West Hollywood, CA
Presenting a lovely self portrait by Swiss artist Juliette Calame’. “Auto-Portrait” is an original vintage oil on panel, signed, c.1925, with an image dimension of 29 x 19.5 inches.
Category

1920s Impressionist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Panel, Oil

Impressionist portrait paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Impressionist portrait paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add portrait paintings created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, orange, purple, yellow and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Suchitra Bhosle, Christopher Clark, Claude Benard, and Michael Alford. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Oil Paint and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Impressionist portrait paintings, so small editions measuring 3 inches across are also available. Prices for portrait paintings made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $1 and tops out at $985,000, while the average work sells for $1,450.

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