Conceptual Paintings
In 1967, artist Sol LeWitt wrote that in “Conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work.” He was giving a name to an art movement that had emerged in the 1960s in which artists were less focused on their medium being something traditionally “artistic” and instead engaged in using any object, movement, form, action or place to express an idea.
LeWitt’s work was featured alongside an assemblage of notes, drawings and outlines by other artists in “Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Art,” a groundbreaking show at New York City’s School of Visual Arts curated by Mel Bochner, another leading exponent of Conceptualism. Building on radical 20th-century statements, like Fountain (1917) by French artist Marcel Duchamp, Conceptual artists around Europe and North and South America were not interested in the commercial art scene and rather directly challenged its systems and values.
Stretching into the 1970s, this movement has also been called Post-Object art and Dematerialized art. Conceptual art reflected a larger era of social and political upheaval. Pieces associated with the style range from Roelof Louw’s Soul City (Pyramid of Oranges) (1967) — a work of installation art that sees fresh oranges stacked into a pyramid from which visitors are allowed to take one orange away — to On Kawara’s “Today” series, which saw the Japanese artist carefully painting a date in white acrylic on canvases consisting of a single color from 1966 to his death in 2014. Artists such as Ed Ruscha, who created the Twentysix Gasoline Stations book — a collection of photos of gas stations that is widely said to be the first modern artists’ book — made photography a major platform for Conceptual art, as did Bruce Nauman, who burned one of Ruscha's books and then photographed it for his own.
Conceptual art’s legacy of questioning artistic authorship, ownership and how to work with complex ideas of space and time had a significant influence on the decades of culture that followed, and it continues to inform art today.
The collection of Conceptual photography, paintings and sculptures on 1stDibs includes artworks by John Baldessari, Jenny Holzer, Lawrence Weiner, Joseph Kosuth and others.
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Acrylic, Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Mixed Media, Acrylic
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Mixed Media, Acrylic
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Acrylic, Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Acrylic, Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Acrylic, Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Acrylic, Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Acrylic, Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Acrylic, Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Mixed Media, Acrylic Polymer
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Acrylic, Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Mirror, Plastic, Acrylic Polymer, Found Objects, Other Medium
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Acrylic, Canvas
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Canvas, Oil, Acrylic
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Canvas, Oil, Acrylic
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Canvas, Oil, Acrylic
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Paper, Ink, Spray Paint, Watercolor, Pencil
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Acrylic, Spray Paint
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Steel
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Ink, Spray Paint, Watercolor, Pencil
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Paintings
Canvas, Oil
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Oil, Canvas
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Paper, Ink, Spray Paint, Watercolor, Pencil
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Paper, Ink, Spray Paint, Watercolor, Pencil
1990s Conceptual Paintings
Mixed Media, Oil
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Iron, Metal
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Canvas, Oil
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Oil
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Canvas, Oil
20th Century Conceptual Paintings
Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Ink, Spray Paint, Watercolor, Pencil
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Paper, Ink, Spray Paint, Watercolor, Pencil
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Canvas, Oil, Wood, Encaustic, Pigment
20th Century Conceptual Paintings
Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Canvas, Encaustic, Pigment
Early 2000s Conceptual Paintings
Canvas, Oil
20th Century Conceptual Paintings
Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Canvas, Wood, Encaustic, Oil, Pigment
Early 2000s Conceptual Paintings
Wood, Encaustic, Pigment
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Paper, Ink, Spray Paint, Watercolor, Pencil
1990s Conceptual Paintings
Marble
Early 2000s Conceptual Paintings
Marble
Early 2000s Conceptual Paintings
Wood, Encaustic, Pigment
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Paint, Ink, Mixed Media, Board, Pencil, Photogram
1990s Conceptual Paintings
Encaustic, Pigment, Canvas
Early 2000s Conceptual Paintings
Marble
1980s Conceptual Paintings
Etching, Paper
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Gold Leaf
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Paper, Ink, Spray Paint, Watercolor, Pencil
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Enamel
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Paper, Ink, Spray Paint, Watercolor, Pencil
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic, Oil Crayon
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Oil Crayon, Canvas, Acrylic
Early 2000s Conceptual Paintings
Mixed Media, Canvas
Early 2000s Conceptual Paintings
Mixed Media, Photographic Paper
2010s Conceptual Paintings
Oil Crayon, Canvas, Acrylic