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Expressionist Paintings

EXPRESSIONIST STYLE

While “expressionist” is used to describe any art that avoids naturalism and instead employs a bold use of flattened forms and intense brushwork, Expressionist art formally describes early-20th-century work from Europe that drew on Symbolism and confronted issues such as urbanization and capitalism. Expressionist artists experimented in paintings and prints with skewed perspectives, abstraction and unconventional, bright colors to portray how isolating and anxious the world felt rather than how it appeared. 

Between 1905 and 1920, Austrian and German artists, in particular, were inspired by Postimpressionists such as Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh in their efforts to strive for a new authenticity in their work. In its geometric patterns and decorative details, Expressionist art was also marked by eclectic sources like German and Russian folk art as well as tribal art from Africa and Oceania, which the movement’s practitioners witnessed at museums and world’s fairs.

Groups of artists came together to share and promote the themes now associated with Expressionism, such as Die Brücke (The Bridge) in Dresden, which included Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and investigated alienation and the dissolution of society in vivid color. In Munich, Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a group led by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, instilled Expressionism with a search for spiritual truths. In his iconic painting The Scream, prolific Norwegian painter Edvard Munch conveyed emotional turmoil through his depiction of environmental elements, such as the threatening sky.

Expressionism shifted around the outbreak of World War I, with artists using more elements of the grotesque in reaction to the escalation of unrest and violence. Printmaking was especially popular, as it allowed artists to widely disseminate works that grappled with social and political issues amid this time of upheaval. Although the art movement ended with the rise of Nazi Germany, where Expressionist creators were labeled “degenerate,” the radical ideas of these artists would influence Neo-Expressionism that emerged in the late 1970s with painters like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente.

​​Find a collection of authentic Expressionist paintings, sculptures, prints and more art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Expressionist
Color:  Beige
Woman with Flowers III, Oil Painting by Juan Garcia Ripolles
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Juan Garcia Ripolles, Spanish (1932 - ) Title: Woman with Flowers III Year: 1970 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed l.r. Size: 18 in. x 10.5 in. (45.72 cm x 26.67 cm)
Category

1970s Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil

Invocation
Located in Buffalo, NY
An original oil on canvas (shaped diptych) measuring 60 3/4″ X 156″ by American contemporary artist Mark Lavatelli. Mark Lavatelli is a Western New York painter, educator, and fre...
Category

1980s Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Cancer Dentist
Located in Buffalo, NY
An original oil on MDF by contemporary conceptual painter Rob Lynch. This work was part of a recent pop up exhibition The Dreamer Who Dreams, which was curated to raise money for Th...
Category

2010s Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Fiberboard, Oil

Yellow Sycamore
Located in Buffalo, NY
An original oil on canvas painting on panel by American contemporary artist Mark Lavatelli.
Category

Early 2000s Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

'Fishermen's Cottages, Old Monterey', California Expressionist, Stanford, Carmel
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed center left, 'Canete' for Robert Canete and painted circa 2000. A vibrant Expressionist-style marine painting showing an aerial view of a sailing boat rounding a headland bes...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Paper, Oil

'Spring Landscape', Paris, Danish Post-Impressionist oil, Charlottenborg Palace
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
A substantial, sunlit landscape showing a fruit-tree in blossom in the foreground with verdant fields receding towards rolling hills beneath turquoise and lavender clouds. Signed ...
Category

1940s Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

C'est le Passe que Nous Attendons
Located in Long Island City, NY
An oil painting by Theo Tobiasse from 1967. An expressionist-style textural painting of intensely dark and vivid color palette. Inspired from the artist's personal experiences of the...
Category

1960s Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

'Woman Sleeping', Large Modernist Figural Oil, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Portland
By Julio Lavallen
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower left, 'Lavallen', dated 1987 and titled verso 'Mujer Dormida' (Woman Sleeping). A large figural oil painting of a young woman shown reclining on a sofa. Julio Lavallen...
Category

1980s Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mid Century Yosemite Park in Winter Landscape
Located in Soquel, CA
Unique Yosemite Park Valley in winter mountain and lake scene by listed California artist Vladimir Shkurkin (American, 1900-1990). Circa 1950's. Signed "...
Category

Mid-20th Century Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Yellow Clown
Located in New York, NY
Bernard Lorjou has painting this subject "Harlequins" many times in watercolors, drawing , oil paintings and later on in the late 60's in acrylic, both on canvas, paper and some on m...
Category

1950s Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil

Still life with duck and bouquet on table top
Located in New York, NY
This painting was completed at his home in the South of France between 1953-1955. There is no in painting, relining or cracks in the paiting and original stretcher.
Category

1950s Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil

Spanish Dancers
Located in San Francisco, CA
Beautiful oil painting of Spanish dancers by Eduardo Pisano Circa 1950S-1960s Oil on canvas The painting measures 18" W x 24" H The frame measures 24.75"...
Category

1960s Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Girl & Rooster Enamel Glazed Ceramic Plaque Israeli Artist Awret Naive Folk Art
Located in Surfside, FL
This is a rare ceramic plaque painted with enamel glaze by famed Israeli German artist Irene Awret is signed Awret Safed on the verso. the actual glazed ceramic is 10X15 inches. Irène Awret was born to a Jewish family in Berlin called Spicker, the youngest of three children. Her mother died in 1927, when Irène was six years old. In 1937 she was forced to stop high school, due to the Nazi race laws. Because she could not continue her regular studies, her father sent her to study drawing, painting and art restoration with a Jewish painter. Among his students were a large number of German Jews who knew they would have to leave Germany within a short time and would require a profession to enable them to support themselves. When the situation grew worse, following the Kristallnacht (the first major attack on German and Austrian Jews in November 1938), her uncle decided to move to Belgium. In 1939 the situation became even worse - her father was fired from his job and the family were forced to leave their home. As a result, Awret's father tried to send her and her sister to Belgium, with the help of smugglers. The first smuggler proved to be a double agent and they were sent back from Aachen to Berlin. Two weeks later they made a second, successful, attempt to sneak across the border. Awret worked for a Dutch Jewish family as a maid. As she had her room and board there, she was able to save enough money to study art part-time at Brussels' Académie Royal des Beaux-Arts. A few months later Awret's father joined her and her financial situation became easier. She left her job and studied full-time, helping support herself with restoration work when it was available and by painting portraits to order. Later, Awret found a hiding place on a farm in Waterloo with a Jewish family who were connected with the underground. In January 1943 she had to return to Brussels, living with a false identity card which stated she was a married woman with two children. Awret succeeded in renting an attic without informing the police where she was - she told her landlady that she had been forced to flee her husband because he beat her. While there, she supported herself by restoring wooden sculptures. A Jewish informer gave her up to the Gestapo, accompanying the two Gestapo men who arrested her. Awret was able to take a bag containing food and drawing materials. She was detained in the Gestapo cellars in Brussels where she drew. Because there was nothing there to draw, she sketched her own hand (view this work). Awret was interrogated in order to reveal the hiding place of her father who was still in Brussels. The National Socialist regime was determined to persecute him, even though he had fought for Germany in World War I and been permanently disabled. They stepped up their torture and brought Awret before Hartmann, the head of the Gestapo in Brussels. When Hartmann saw her block of drawings, he asked her where she had studied art and halted the interrogation. Awret was placed in a narrow cell and then transferred to Malines camp, which the Belgian's called Mechelen. Malines was a transit camp to Auschwitz, regularly sending 2000 people at a time. Although she arrived just before Transport No. 20, Irène Awret avoided being included. Instead she was put to work in the leather workshop, decorating broaches. While she was there, Hartmann visited the camp and spotted her: "I could have discovered where your father is hiding," he told her. When her artistic talents became known, she was transferred to the Mahlerstube (artist's workshop) where she worked producing graphics for the Germans until the end of the war. When Carol (Karel) Deutsch (whose works are now on view at Yad Vashem) was sent from Mechelen to his death with his wife, he left young Irene his paintbox. Irene also recalls seeing the great painter Felix Nussbaum and his wife being pushed into a boxcar bound for the gas, and tells of the aftermath of the famous 20th Train incident, when a young Jewish doctor armed only with a pistol and helped by two unarmed friends with a lantern ambushed one of Mechelen's Auschwitz-bound trains carrying 1,618 Jews, most of whom had fled Eastern Europe for Belgium. Awret's job enabled her to paint and draw - mainly in pencil, but also in watercolors and oils. In the artists' workshop she met a Jewish refugee from Poland - Azriel Awret...
Category

1950s Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Enamel

Still Life with Chess
Located in Kansas City, MO
Title: Still Life with Chess Materials : Oil on Canvas Date : 1960's Dimensions : 42 1/2 x 31 in. In the late 1960's, Daniel Brennan had a day job loading boxcars for Railway Express. During nights, he would go to a coffee house (Lawrence Gallery and Coffee House, at 43rd and Main St., KCMO), to sit and draw before heading home to paint. The gallery owners, Anne and Sidney Lawrence...
Category

1960s Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Paint, Canvas, Oil

Jeuenes Pins a La Cadiere D'Azur by Laurent Marcel Salinas
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Laurent Marcel Salinas, French (1913 - 2010) Title: Jeunes Pins a La Cadiere D'Azur, 616 Year: 1977 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed and dated verso Image Size: 17.75 x 25 inche...
Category

1970s Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil

Expressionist paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Expressionist 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 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, green and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Iryna Kastsova, Maria Asuncion Raventos, Masri Hayssam, and Evelyne Ballestra. 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 Expressionist paintings, so small editions measuring 1 inches across are also available.

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