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Realist Portrait Paintings

REALIST STYLE

Realist art attempts to portray its subject matter without artifice. Similar to naturalism, authentic realist paintings and prints see an integration of true-to-life colors, meticulous detail and linear perspectives for accurate portrayals of the world. 

Work that involves illusionistic techniques of realism dates back to the classical world, such as the deceptive trompe l’oeil used since ancient Greece. Art like this became especially popular in the 17th century when Dutch artists like Evert Collier painted objects that appeared real enough to touch. Realism as an artistic movement, however, usually refers to 19th-century French realist artists such as Honoré Daumier exploring social and political issues in biting lithographic prints, while the likes of Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet painting people — particularly the working class — with all their imperfections, navigating everyday urban life. This was a response to the dominant academic art tradition that favored grand paintings of myth and history. 

By the turn of the 20th century, European artists, such as the Pre-Raphaelites, were experimenting with nearly photographic realism in their work, as seen in the attention to every botanical attribute of the flowers surrounding the drowned Ophelia painted by English artist John Everett Millais.

Although abstraction was the guiding style of 20th-century art, the realism trend in American modern art endured in Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth and other artists’ depictions of the complexities of the human experience. In the late 1960s, Photorealism emerged with artists like Chuck Close and Richard Estes giving their paintings the precision of a frame of film.

Contemporary artists such as Jordan Casteel, LaToya Ruby Frazier and Aliza Nisenbaum are now using the unvarnished realist approach for honest representations of people and their worlds. Alongside traditional mediums, technology such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and immersive installations are helping artists create new sensations of realism in art.

​​Find authentic realist paintings, sculptures, prints and more art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Realist
Boat Couture: Home Edition
Located in Zofingen, AG
A surreal and contemplative composition, this painting captures a poised woman standing in a delicate pale pink rowboat that gently floats atop still water—remarkably, within the con...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Cotton Canvas, Acrylic

Portrait of Mrs. Johnstone
Located in Miami, FL
This is one of Raeburns best works from his best period that is not in a museum or private collection. Three-quarter length portrait, seated in a white dress with a black scarf over...
Category

Early 1800s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Rediscovered Mastery: A Portrait by Nina Bergstedt
Located in Stockholm, SE
This poignant portrait by Swedish artist Nina Bergstedt captures a quiet intensity that lingers in the viewer’s mind. The sitter, an unknown woman, is portrayed with deep emotional p...
Category

1890s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Boy in Army Coat
Located in New York, NY
Gouache on paper Signed and dated, l.r. This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City Born in California, John Button (1929-1982) was educated at University of Cali...
Category

1970s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Gouache, Paper

Julius Kronberg’s Angelica – A Romantic Heroine of Renaissance Legend
Located in Stockholm, SE
Literary Origins of Angelica The subject of this painting is Angelica, a princess from the epic chivalric romances of the Italian Renaissance. She first appears in Matteo Maria Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato (1483) and reappears famously in Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1532). In these poems – part of the Matter of France cycle of Charlemagne and his paladins – Angelica’s extraordinary beauty ensnares many knights, including Orlando (Roland) and his cousin Rinaldo, sparking rivalries and adventures. Ariosto’s narrative particularly highlights Angelica’s tumultuous journey: at one point she is stripped and chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster (a scene mirroring the myth of Andromeda) before being dramatically rescued by the valiant knight Ruggiero on his winged horse. Ultimately, however, Angelica chooses her own destiny. She falls in love with a humble Saracen soldier, Medoro, whom she nurses back to health, and she returns with him to her far-off Asian kingdom – an affair that drives the heartbroken Orlando to madness. This independent resolution (marrying outside the circle of Christian knights) made Angelica an emblem of feminine agency and romantic idealism in Renaissance literature. Her story remained popular in art and literature through the centuries, symbolizing the allure and elusiveness of love. Kronberg’s Portrayal and Composition In Julius Kronberg...
Category

Late 19th Century Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

"Amber Ray, " Oil Painting
Located in Denver, CO
Lacey Lewis's (US based) "Amber Ray" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts a female model sitting on a red couch, with big dark hair, and pasties over her nipples. Thi...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Purpose of Existence 14 - 21st Century, Contemporary, Figurative Portrait, Women
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
Shipping Procedure FREE Shipping Worldwide 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 Authent...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

"The Mooring of Scarlet, " Oil Painting
Located in Denver, CO
Pamela Wilson's (US based) "The Mooring of Scarlet" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts a pregnant model with a boat on top of her head. This...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Maternity mixed media on canvas Nepal
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Jose Luis Fuentetaja - Maternity - mixed media (print and oil on canvas). Canvas size 54x65 cm. Frameless. Is born in Madrid on the 21st july 195...
Category

1990s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Mixed Media

Olaf Schneider, "Tiny Dancer", 16x10 Ballet Oil Painting on Canvas
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
"Tiny Dancer" by Olaf Schneider is a 16"x10" oil painting on canvas. This life-like painting depicts a brunette ballerina dancer in pose, dressed in blue with a white hair piece tyi...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Marie Channer, "Sentinel", 30x15 Equine Portrait Oil Painting on Canvas
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
This piece, "Sentinel", is a 30x15 equine oil painting on canvas by artist Marie Channer. Featured is a portrait of a dark brown horse in the warm light of stable, illuminating the b...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Continental School "Mother and Child"
Located in Astoria, NY
Continental School, "Mother and Child", Oil on Canvas, illegibly signed "opapa" (?) lower right, giltwood frame. image: 29.5" H x 23.5" W; frame: 38.5" H x 32.5" W x 2.5" D. Provenan...
Category

Mid-20th Century Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Marie Channer, "Leap of Faith", 24x16 Ballet Dancer Oil Painting on Canvas
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
This piece, "Leap of Faith", is a 24x16 oil painting on canvas by artist Marie Channer. Featured is a ballet dancer in the spotlight of the stage, caught in pose. Overall cool tones ...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Anna Fisher" (2016) Unlimited Edition Poster Print, Portrait of Astronaut, 2016
Located in Denver, CO
"Anna Fisher" is an unlimited edition poster print by the acclaimed UK artist Ed Fairburn. This captivating piece, released in 2016, is printed with archiv...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Archival Pigment, Photographic Paper

"Sweet adventures" Original oil painting on paper. Vertical large impressionism
Located in Oslo, NO
In this painting, I've poured my fascination with life's simple pleasures onto paper, capturing the innocent wonder of a child's first encounter with a world of delightful sweets. Th...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Acrylic, Bamboo Paper

Oil Painting / Photorealism / Figurative Art / Human Figure /
Located in Buffalo, NY
Bruce Adams was a painter, art educator, and writer. Born in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1952, he received a B.S. in 1976 and an M.A. in 1983 from Buffalo State College. Adams’s work is included in numerous private and museum collections, among them the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University, and the UB Anderson Gallery (all of which are located in Western New York...
Category

Early 2000s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Nude, Reflection
Located in Sag Harbor, NY
An oil painting by Contemporary Italian Realist painter, Daniela Astone - A nude figure sits on a sterile, white floor. A mirror presents the figure's back from another angle. She holds a towel up to her face, partially covering her chest and lap. One leg is tucked up behind her, her reflection however shows neither the hand with the towel nor the foot she sits on. Artist Bio: Daniela Astone was born in Pisa, Italy, in 1980 and raised in Porto Santo Stefano...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel, Wood Panel

Juliet
By Mary Rosamond Coolidge
Located in Milford, NH
A beautiful portrait oil painting of Juliet by American artist Mary Rosamond Coolidge (1884-1978). Coolidge was a well-known portrait painter and a graduate of Massachusetts Normal A...
Category

Mid-20th Century Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Golden" oil on brass painting - realist self portrait of the artist, framed
Located in Sag Harbor, NY
A self-portrait by Melissa Franklin Sanchez, emerges gracefully from the brass panel she paints upon. Frame Dimensions: 21.45 x 12.82 inches Artist Bio: Melissa Franklin Sanchez ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Brass

Wicked Witch of the East
Located in Burlingame, CA
'Wicked Witch of the East' is a masterfully painted oil on panel, that features a long haired, young and nude woman with a scar down her stomach. I bird atop her head gazes down at a...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

One Way
Located in Zofingen, AG
This surreal artwork portrays a solitary figure in a dark coat standing on a desert road, evoking mystery and introspection. A red phone booth to the l...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Cotton Canvas, Acrylic

Stadium Party - Golden Age of Illustration
Located in Miami, FL
Stadium Party depicts at wholesome all-american tail gate party from the 1950's. Stadium Party Circa 1950's 16 x 22 Oil on Canvas Signed lower left , Condition is excellent, Work i...
Category

1950s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

"Metempsychosis: Ginger Snapped, " Oil Painting
Located in Denver, CO
Pamela Wilson's (US based) "Metempsychosis: Ginger Snapped" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts a topless female model with a Baboon head. This is a secondary market...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Eisenhower, Time magazine cover Time magazine cover, July 4, 1955 ( alternate)
Located in Miami, FL
Signed lower right, Archivally Matted to 17.75 x 16.75 inches. A noble portrait of Ike as President is depicted against a ringing Liberty Bell. In the...
Category

1950s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Gouache

"Follow Me" (2020) By Beth Sistrunk, Original Oil Painting
Located in Denver, CO
Beth Sistrunk's "Follow Me" is an oil on panel featuring a model with pink petals. About the artist: Beth's interests in painting the figure, women’s fashion, flowers, landscape pho...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Robert K. White "Girl with Red Hair" Signed Oil, Contemporary Realist Portrait
Located in Miami, FL
ROBERT KENNETH WHITE – "GIRL WITH RED HAIR" Oil on Canvas ⚜ Hand Signed Lower Right ⚜ Frameless Display A PORTRAIT STUDY OF STRENGTH AND INTROSPECTION In this emotionally charged p...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Kazuya Ushioda "The Sound Of Prayer" - Oil On Panel Figurative Painting 2021
Located in Denver, CO
Kazuya Ushioda’s The Sound of Prayer (2021) is a striking figurative oil on panel that captures a moment of quiet reflection. Measuring 44.12 x 11.87 x 0.70 inches, this tall and slender composition features a single figure clothed in a white kimono adorned with delicate blue floral motifs and cinched by a vivid red sash. The woman’s eyes are closed, and her hands are gently positioned near her head, suggesting an intimate state of concentration or contemplation. Painted in oil on a carefully prepared panel, this original, handmade work showcases Ushioda’s meticulous technique, evident in the rendering of subtle skin tones and nuanced folds of fabric. The vertical format accentuates the graceful poise of the figure, drawing the viewer’s gaze downward from her serene expression to the richly detailed kimono patterns. The neutral background highlights the subject’s form, creating a harmonious interplay of color and space. Executed in 2021, The Sound of Prayer stands...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

"Lost in Thought" Oil Painting
Located in Denver, CO
Kelly Birkenruth's (US based) "Lost in Thought" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts a lone female figure in profile looking towards Japanese blossoms in the background while resting her elbow on her knee. Kelly Birkenruth’s captivating paintings are in the style of contemporary realism while staying firmly grounded in the tradition of the Old Masters. She is able to pull the viewer into her paintings by interweaving emotion with a humanistic quality through her supreme handling of light. Through her portraits and still lifes she is able to evoke sensitivity and empathy, which in turn allows her to create images which transcend mere representation to capture the true essence of her subject. Kelly’s arresting compositions, draftsmanship, use of color and observation of detail allow her to create paintings with a timeless quality. After earning her degree from Pennsylvania State University, Kelly moved to southern California where she began a career as a fashion model. Her agency soon sent her abroad to Paris and Tokyo, where she spent the next several years modeling. When she wasn’t walking the runway, she spent endless hours in the great museums of the world, closely observing and studying the works of the Old Masters. “My time abroad, particularly in Paris, opened my eyes to the vast beauty and power of a great painting. After that I knew I wanted to dedicate my life to the pursuit of Fine Art” said Birkenruth. After returning to the States, Kelly studied at Otis College of Art in Los Angeles, CA. She then continued her studies through workshops and private study with renowned artists such as Daniel Sprick, Steven Assael and Jesus Emmanuel Villarreal. In the spring of 2019 Kelly...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

A Cat, a Hat & a Hell of a Night
Located in Zofingen, AG
Artwork depicts a enigmatic scene in a desolate desert under a stormy sky, slashed by lightning. Two figures stand with their backs to the viewer, gazing at a weathered wooden buildi...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Cotton Canvas, Acrylic

Israeli Oil Painting Ruth Schloss Child, Doll, Wagon, Kibbutz Social Realist Art
Located in Surfside, FL
Large magnificent colorful Ruth Schloss oil painting of a child with a wagon with a doll or a baby in a carriage stroller.. Signed in Hebrew size measures 31x43 with frame , 23x35.25 without the frame. (this is being sold unframed). Ruth Schloss (22 November 1922 – 2013) was an Israeli painter and illustrator who mainly depicted neglected scenes such as Arabs, transition camps, children and women at eye-level as egalitarian, socialist view via social realism style painting and drawing. Schloss became Israeli painting’s sensitive, conscious, remembering eye. Ruth Schloss was born on 22 November 1922, in Nuremberg, Germany, to Ludwig and Dian Schloss, as the second of three daughters of bourgeois assimilationist Jewish family well-integrated into German culture. As the Nazis came into power in 1933, her family immigrated to Israel in 1937, and settled in Kfar Shmaryahu, then an agricultural settlement. Schloss studied at the Department of Schloss graphic design at "Bezalel" from 1938 to 1942 alongside Friedel Stern and Joseph Hirsch. She was a realistic painter who focused on disadvantaged people in the society and social matters as an egalitarian. Her realism was thus an “inevitable realism,” motivated by an inner necessity: the need to observe reality as it is. Her painting repeatedly addressed the door pulled from its frame, employing drawing’s unique ability to stop time and prolong the image’s persistence in the retina, she repeatedly committed to paper - in a matter-of-fact, non-evasive manner devoid of mystery – man’s tendency to generate chaos, suffering and pain. Throughout her life, Schloss remained minimalist. Painting about human fate was the main subject of her artworks. Her natural inclination was to describe the darker aspect of human existence. 1930s The Schloss household was characterized by open, liberal spirit, in keeping with the parents’ progressive views. It deeply influenced Ruth’s mental development, as she learned to tie culture and art with sensitivity towards the weak and underprivileged. In Jerusalem, she joined a commune of Hashomer Hatzair in which she shaped her socialist views, which she maintained throughout her long career. 1940s In this period she mainly depicted landscapes of kibbutz and wretched women living hard life, children in huger, older people, refugees. After completing her art studies, Schloss joined a training group at Kibbutz Merhavia in 1942, and after two years moved to Karkur region, the nucleus established Kibutz Lehavot Habashan in the Upper Galilee. Through this time, she fell in love with the surroundings and drew landscapes. They are simple and direct with fresh, lucid lines. These paintings were selected as the main works of her first exhibition in 1949. In early 1945, Schloss started to draw illustrations in the children’s magazine Mishmar Leyeladim, and designed the logo of Al Hamishmar, the paper’s new name in 1948. In 1948, upon the founding of Mapam (United Workers’ Party), she designed her party’s emblem, which became a well-known icon. She kept working as an illustrator for Mishmar Layeladim until 1949. "Mor the Monkey" project yielded financial profits and this income was used for a study trip to Paris for two years. She was succesfull as illustrator however, she had inner conflicts of her identity as witnessed painter toward neglected class in Israeli society. First Exhibition at Mikra-Studio Gallery, 1949 She presented forty drawings on paper in her first solo exhibition, representing a selection of the themes of kibbutz landscape, its lifestyle. Schloss confidently proposed her direction through simplicity without using colors in her drawings. 1950s Between 1949 and 1951, she studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. She began working in oils, with which she continued throughout the 1960s. The exhibition “Back from Paris” opened in November 1951 at Mikra-Studio Gallery . In 1951 she married Benjamin Cohen, who served as chairman of the national leadership of Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party in Tel Aviv. He was a theoretician and a man of principle, highly esteemed by its leaders who became a professor of history at Tel Aviv University. In 1953, following the Mordechai Oren affair and the publication of Moshe Sneh 's followers from Kibbutz Artzi, she and her husband left the kibbutz and moved to the agricultural farm, Kfar Shmaryahu, where she lived until her death. At a certain point in Israeli history, segments of the socialist movement felt that Israel should become part of the Communist bloc, rather than seek the support of the western world. Because the Schloss couple support of Moshe Sneh’s left-wing party, they had to leave the kibbutz. She loved to depict ordinary women as figurative on her painting without hiding or making up anything. The poet Natan Zach wrote about her works in 1955: “Her motto remains that which has been all these years: life as it is, without bluffing." Schloss’s “Pietà” (1953) became a universal cry expressing the pain of mothers on either side of the divide. In the late 1950s, she was the mother of two daughters. When she drew her daughters, unlike the universal babies she depicted, naked and with clenched fists, the painting of her children employed babyish sweetness to the full in a quiet, peaceful and heart-stirring filling rather than urgency. She also painted children in the transition camp and Jaffa in the 1950s and 1960s. 1960s-1980s – The period of Studio in Jaffa Schloss painted at a studio in Jaffa from 1962 till 1983. In this time, she turned her interest to people around her more than kibbutz – the children, mothers, and poor workers, the alleys and houses. She opened the space to the street and its dwellings, built interactions around it, and was nurtured by the presence of the outside in her work. 1960s Schloss familiarized to an Arab woman, Nabava, lived in poor. Schloss returned to painting images of old people later, and she called her painting figurative elderly people in the old age homes “waiting”. In the late 1960s, Ruth discovered acrylic paint and never turn back to oil painting. In 1965 Schloss devoted a series “Area 9 (1965)”, dedicated to the demolition of Israeli-Arab houses and the expropriation of the land, and carried a definite socio-political messages. The series was exhibited at Beit Zvi, Ramat Gan, in 1966. She was the only artist who addressed the result of the Six-Day War immediately afterward. In 1968, Schloss and Gansser-Markus presented “Drawing of War” in Zurich gallery. She expressed the war as an ultimate expression of destruction and ruin, regardless of victors and vanquished. 1970s In late 1970s Schloss began printing the selected photograph directly on the canvas, posterior reworking it in acrylic. She decided to print her work at Har-El Printers in Jaffa, and these became the surface of her painting. This technique was mainly adopted in two large series: Anne Frank (1979-1980) and Borders (1982). Through this technique she placed the figure of elder Frank next to that of the famous young Frank, and released it at the exhibition at Bet Ariela Cultural Center, Tel Aviv, in 1981. The series touched upon the Nazi Holocaust. 1980s The Lebanon War raised the question of “The Good Fence” and the effect of the war. She dedicated a large series Boarders, one of the most powerful image linked to the series is the figure of Yemenite woman raising her hand. She was the first to raise the Black Panthers demonstration to the level of a social icon. In the 1980s and again in 2000, the Intifada uprisings also led Schloss to the easel to render a good number of representational and symbolic works that in their way denounced Israel's political and military actions. 1990s – 2000s Ruth Schloss never had an exhibition in a major Israeli museum. Her works were presented in private galleries and small museums. The main museums, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Israel Museum, included her works only in group exhibitions, and only in 1991 was her retrospective exhibited at the Herzliya Museum. In the 2000s, Schloss’s metaphors turned into animal kingdom and Bedouins in the south. A huge rhinoceros, birds of prey, and other "bad animals," as Cohen Evron, daughter of Ruth, calls them and "I connected this to the Nazis," said Schloss. Schloss' work after she didn't find human expression able to transmit the endless cruelty she saw in Israel's political mentality. Schloss also continued to follow and collect documentary photographs of destructions of houses from the war, the Intifada, the sequence of her work about ruin from 1949 to 2005, was a cumulative testimony about the painful history of Israel and Palestine. In 2006, a large retrospective exhibition of her work was presented at the Museum of Art in Ein Harod, curated by Tali Tamir. Education 1938-41 Bezalel Art Academy, Jerusalem, with Mordecai Ardon 1946 painting course for Kibbutz Artzi artists with Yohanan Simon and Marcel Janco 1949-51 Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Paris Awards and recognition 1965 Silver Medal, International exhibition in Leipzig, Germany 1977 Artist-in-Residence, The Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris Selected solo exhibitions 2004 “Micha...
Category

Mid-20th Century Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Oil Painting / Abstract versus Figurative Art / Figurative Art / Human Figure /
Located in Buffalo, NY
Bruce Adams was a painter, art educator, and writer. Born in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1952, he received a B.S. in 1976 and an M.A. in 1983 from Buffalo State College. Adams’s work is includ...
Category

1980s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Hani Tradition
Located in Colorado Springs, CO
Original oil painting on canvas by artist Mian Situ. Framed.
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Lithuanian French Ecole de Paris Judaica Oil Painting Refugee Family
Located in Surfside, FL
Expressionist Realistic portrait of a Jewish refugee family World War II era by Lithuanian French Jewish artist. Here the artist conveys a sense of quiet grandeur through the eyes of...
Category

20th Century Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

"Mystique n.1" Portrait Oil Painting 28" x 28 "inch by Dmitriy Krestniy
Located in Culver City, CA
"Mystique n.1" Portrait Oil Painting 28" x 28 "inch by Dmitriy Krestniy ATTENTION: Painting ships rolled in a tube. A look through Dmitriy’s designs reveals a glamorous, feminine,...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Desvelada, " Oil Painting
Located in Denver, CO
Aixa Oliveras's (US based) "Desvelada" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts a model laying in bed looking at her cell phone. This is a se...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

'Madame de Joannès et ses Filles' by Jules Leonard (1827-1897) Belgian - French
Located in Knokke, BE
Jules Leonard Cerfontaine 1827 – 1897 Valenciennes Belgian – French Painter 'Madame de Joannès et ses Filles' Signature: signed lower right and dated ‘Jules Leonard 1881’, on the r...
Category

19th Century Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Girl In Red
Located in Milford, NH
A fine watercolor portrait of a girl with a red wide brim hat and dress by American artist Lee Lufkin Kaula (1865-1957). Kaula was born in Erie, PA ...
Category

Early 20th Century Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Portrait of Girl with Flowers by Andrei Belichenko & Maria Boohtiyarova
Located in Uppingham, GB
A Wonderful Oil on canvas by Andrei Belichenko & Maria Boohityarova. Two excellent Russian artists who have been exhibiting in France, their works are centred around exquisite detail...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

19th Century Italian Orientalist Antique Oil Painting Young Woman Well Sunset
Located in Stockholm, SE
Exquisite 19th century Italian orientalist oil painting depicting a romantic sunset scene with a young Middle Eastern woman at an ancient well. The composition features a beautifully...
Category

Late 19th Century Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Wood, Canvas

Kazuya Ushioda "Spring Breeze" - Oil On Panel Figurative Painting 2021
Located in Denver, CO
Kazuya Ushioda’s Spring Breeze (2021) is an original, handmade oil on panel artwork that measures approximately 44.12 x 11.87 x 0.70 inches. This vertical composition offers a meticu...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

"Whispering Hope" (2018) By John Tarantola, Nude Oil Portrait Painting
Located in Denver, CO
John Tarantola's original nude portrait "Whispering Hope" (2018) is a beautiful realist painting done with oil on panel, which depicts an athletic nude male figure lying on a bed on ...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Mid-century oil on canvas portrait painting of a seated woman, by Sierk Schroder
Located in Oostende, BE
Sierk Schröder (1903-2002) is considered to be the most important and most requested Dutch portrait painter of the twentieth century. Many well-known fi...
Category

Mid-20th Century Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas

29th century English, Portrait od a seated Siamese Cat
Located in Woodbury, CT
J. Foley (British, 20th Century) Siamese Cat Oil on canvas Signed on the reverse This elegant portrait captures the distinctive grace and poise of the Siamese cat, renowned for its ...
Category

1970s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Contemporary portrait "Вlack Leather Gloves"
Located in Zofingen, AG
This is a partial homage to David Hockney's art. In this painting, I explored the interplay of realism and symbolism through the figurative use of acrylic. The central figure, clad i...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Judaica "The Rebbe'" European Hasidic Rabbi Portrait Oil Painting
By Charles Hannaford
Located in Surfside, FL
Signed with monogrammed initials and has his name written on verso. Realistic portrait of an older rabbi. CHARLES E. HANNAFORD, English; 1863-1955, Hannaford was a British waterco...
Category

20th Century Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Miss Marlboro
Located in Zofingen, AG
This work blurs the boundary between classical portraiture and conceptual commentary. At its center is a poised woman whose relaxed demeanor and introspective gaze create a magnetic ...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

"Golden Ocean Reflection - Rise", (2023) Oil Painting by Alexandra Telgmann
Located in Denver, CO
Alexandra Telgmann's "Golden Ocean Reflection - Rise" (2023) is an oil and 24kt gold leaf painting on aluminum, measuring 8 x 8 inches and depicting...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Metal, Gold Leaf

Akari. Holiday. Girl, Japan, Kimono
Located in Oslo, NO
The painting “Akari. Holiday” continues the series of paintings “Children of the World”. "Akari is the most popular girl's name in Japan today." said Anna about this portait. "The g...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Acrylic

Portrait of a Young Woman
Located in Wilton Manors, FL
Jose Mitjans Pico (1904-1991). Portrait of a Young Woman Oil on canvas 20 x 16 in, 27 x 23 in (framed). Signed right margin.
Category

Mid-20th Century Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

She's Got Your Number, Mister (98-99 Series), Original Painting
Located in San Francisco, CA

Artist Comments
A man stands still, his eyes hidden in the shadow of his hat. The lack of a visible gaze adds mystery to the scene. He is a visualization of someone whose voice...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

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

Hippie Original oil acrylic on canvas painting realism Spain Sitges 70s
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Frame size 52x44 Is born in Madrid on the 21st july 1951. After attending primary school, he starts to grow an enormous tendency for drawing. At the age of 14 he begins to work in advertising and attends to the Vallecas school of arts. At the age of 14 he travels to Switzerland and in Geneve he gets intensly into painting and decides to dedicate himself only to it. When he returns to Spain he enrolls Arts Studies, and at the begining of summer '66, he visits Sitges, where he'll come back year after year and where ultimately he'll set his home. At this time he starts selling his painting in the flea market in Madrid and later in Sitges, setting himself on the street, thus completing his studies and making it economically. While he's in Madrid he recives lessons by Pedro Mozas at Bellas Artes and starts to learn profoundly about painting. In 1969 he starts painting portraits in the streets. In Sitges he creates, with other friends, a great artistic atmosphere in the Paseo de la Ribera, by the sea, that today still exists. He starts travelling through Europe, visiting and painting in Paris, London and Amsterdam. In the middle of this bohemian epoque, he moves to the Cannary Islands during the winters for 5 years in a row, he moves in the Parque de Santa Catalina "Las Palmas de Gran Canaria" where he works and meet all sorts of people in the streets, which later would mark his pictoric line. He becomes friend with Sidney Nagley in 1969, who organizes his first exhibition in Toronto, Canada. Afterwards he'll leave his studies and start painting exclusively in his studio. He gathers his first exhibition in the Ateneu of Barcelona in 1970. He befriends with the art critic of La Vanguardia, Fernando Gutierrez and the Count of Caralt orders him a set of illustration for a new edition of Garcia Lorcas Romancero Gitano. His first exhibition in a commercial gallery is done in the Majestic Gallery in Barcelona with a gorgeous collection of nudity drawings. He achieves huge success and for some years he affords his painting thanks to those drawings. During a period in Madrid, Mr Ponce de León, a consul in the Ministry of Exterior Affairs grants him with bachelor degree to study in the prestigious Academia de España in Rome. However, he can't accept it due to militar service obligations. Some days later, before joining the ranks he opens in the Cuatre Gats (Palma de Mallorca) with hiperrealist pieces that already then he presented as the first painter in that city, that later would become a fashion in 1973. After this period he meets José Maria Gudiol who advises positively. Since then, the intense work and the fight for daily improvement that has become the trademark of his life. The seek of styles and situations, the journeys through Europe always aware of all the tendencies that have in the art line that we can see nowadays. At his more than fifty years given to paint, his individual exhibitions beat the 100, his artwork is highly appreciated and valued in the complex market of art. In October 1982 hi makes his first exhibition in Tarragona. In the catalogue, writing of the unforgettable Fernando Gutierrez, he says "Fuentetaja is an artist of character and exceptional upbringing with a masterly knowledge of technique and resourses, and personality completely uncommon to the dimension of his sensitivity, as the richness of his deep and bloomed liricism. A judgement as accurate as foreseeing for the future outstanding of the artist, in where his paint soared through different phases mantaining an unquestionable quality. Lines, cubist, expressionist and hiperrealist till his current realism, in the middle of his creative maturity. Jose Luis Fuentetaja...
Category

1980s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Contemporary portrait "California"
Located in Zofingen, AG
This artwork captures a vibrant Californian scene, with a sleek vintage black car set against a sun-drenched desert landscape and a bold "CALIFORNIA"...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Cotton Canvas, Acrylic

"Píntame Angelitos Negros" – Figurative Oil Painting With Patterned Veil and Sur
Located in Denver, CO
Jessica Oliveras's "Píntame angelitos negros" is a striking, original figurative painting executed in oil, oil stick, and marker on linen. This richly layered work measures 21.65 x 1...
Category

Early 2000s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Linen

Fragmented Presence
Located in Zofingen, AG
This visually arresting piece explores identity through a minimalist lens, blending stark realism with geometric abstraction. A figure in black—poised, introspective, and shielded be...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Cotton Canvas, Acrylic

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

"Luster" (2024) Oil Painting by Karen Offutt, Female Portrait
Located in Denver, CO
Karen Offutt's (US based) "Luster" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts a portrait of a woman on an abstracted background. The painting is framed, with overall dimensio...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Contemporary portrait "Guardians"
Located in Zofingen, AG
I wake up in the morning, open Facebook, read the news... and when the hell will I finally wake up from this nightmare...In creating this piece, I sought to bridge the classic with t...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Cotton Canvas, Acrylic

"Zaeli" (2024) Oil Painting by Karen Offutt, Female Portrait
Located in Denver, CO
Karen Offutt's (US based) "Zaeli" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts a female bathed in light with oversized white and pink blooms surrounding her. The painting is fr...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

"Denim series.From the life of Bastian .Ice cream." Original portrait painting.
Located in Oslo, NO
In this piece, I've woven layers of acrylic and ink to capture a joyful moment in time, where youthful exuberance shines through a child's delighted expression. Marvel at the fine ar...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Paintings

Materials

Fabric, Acrylic

Realist portrait paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Realist 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, purple, orange, red and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Matt Talbert, Chikako Okada, Mark Beard, and Bruce Adams. 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 Realist portrait paintings, so small editions measuring 0.5 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 $180 and tops out at $885,000, while the average work sells for $3,600.

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