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Modern Paintings

MODERN STYLE

The first decades of the 20th century were a period of artistic upheaval, with modern art movements including Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism and Dadaism questioning centuries of traditional views of what art should be. Using abstraction, experimental forms and interdisciplinary techniques, painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers and performance artists all pushed the boundaries of creative expression.

Major exhibitions, like the 1913 Armory Show in New York City — also known as the “International Exhibition of Modern Art,” in which works like the radically angular Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp caused a sensation — challenged the perspective of viewers and critics and heralded the arrival of modern art in the United States. But the movement’s revolutionary spirit took shape in the 19th century.

The Industrial Revolution, which ushered in new technology and cultural conditions across the world, transformed art from something mostly commissioned by the wealthy or the church to work that responded to personal experiences. The Impressionist style emerged in 1860s France with artists like Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Edgar Degas quickly painting works that captured moments of light and urban life. Around the same time in England, the Pre-Raphaelites, like Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, borrowed from late medieval and early Renaissance art to imbue their art with symbolism and modern ideas of beauty.

Emerging from this disruption of the artistic status quo, modern art went further in rejecting conventions and embracing innovation. The bold legacy of leading modern artists Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian and many others continues to inform visual culture today.

Find a collection of modern paintings, sculptures, prints and other fine art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Modern
The Heythrop, coming up from Lower Swell, Gloucestershire
The Heythrop, coming up from Lower Swell, Gloucestershire

The Heythrop, coming up from Lower Swell, Gloucestershire

By Michael Lyne

Located in Stoke, Hampshire

Michael Lyne (1912-1989) The Heythrop, coming up from Lower Swell, Gloucestershire Signed lower left Oil on canvas Canvas size - 28 x 42 in Michael Lyne was one of Britain’s most r...

Category

20th Century Modern Paintings

Materials

Oil

Is That So (Abstract, Expressionism, Warm, Lively, Green, Teal, Yellow, 20% OFF)
Is That So (Abstract, Expressionism, Warm, Lively, Green, Teal, Yellow, 20% OFF)

Is That So (Abstract, Expressionism, Warm, Lively, Green, Teal, Yellow, 20% OFF)

By Katherine Bello

Located in Kansas City, MO

Katherine Bello Is That So Mixed media on canvas 2023 Size: 40x30x1.5in Signed, dated and titled by hand COA provided Ref.: 924802-1881 *on stretcher frame - ready to hang ** additi...

Category

2010s Modern Paintings

Materials

Cotton Canvas, Oil

1973 Vintage Modernist Swedish Abstract Landscape Oil Painting - Blue Divide
1973 Vintage Modernist Swedish Abstract Landscape Oil Painting - Blue Divide

1973 Vintage Modernist Swedish Abstract Landscape Oil Painting - Blue Divide

Located in Bristol, GB

BLUE DIVIDE Size: 64 x 64.5 cm (including frame) Oil on canvas An atmospheric 20th century abstract landscape scene that distils nature into its most elemental forms – sky, land, an...

Category

1970s Modern Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Hercules and Omphale - Oil Painting on Canvas - 18th Century
Hercules and Omphale - Oil Painting on Canvas - 18th Century

Hercules and Omphale - Oil Painting on Canvas - 18th Century

Located in Roma, IT

Hercules and Omphale is an original painting realized in France between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th Century. Original oil painting on canvas. Dimensions: 73 x...

Category

Late 18th Century Modern Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Vintage American Impressionist New Orleans Courtyard Framed Landscape Painting
Vintage American Impressionist New Orleans Courtyard Framed Landscape Painting

Vintage American Impressionist New Orleans Courtyard Framed Landscape Painting

Located in Buffalo, NY

Vintage American modernist New Orleans street scene oil painting by Charles Whitfield Richards (1906 - 1992). Oil on canvas. Gallery provenance. Framed. Unsigned. Provenance from a ...

Category

1950s Modern Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Hidden Portraits VIII, Modern Acrylic on Canvas, Framed, Circa 1980s
Hidden Portraits VIII, Modern Acrylic on Canvas, Framed, Circa 1980s

Hidden Portraits VIII, Modern Acrylic on Canvas, Framed, Circa 1980s

Located in London, GB

'Hidden Portraits VIII', acrylic on canvas mounted on board, Florentine School (circa 1980s-90s). This gallery has acquired a number of paintings through an intermediary of an ageing...

Category

1980s Modern Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Canvas

French Modernist 20th Century Oil Painting Knight in Shining Armour on Horseback
French Modernist 20th Century Oil Painting Knight in Shining Armour on Horseback

French Modernist 20th Century Oil Painting Knight in Shining Armour on Horseback

Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire

The Knight in Shining Armour French Modernist painter, circa 1950's oil on board unframed board: 10.5 x 9 inches provenance: private collection, France condition: very good and sound...

Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Paintings

Materials

Oil

JEAN MARC (1949-2019) 20th CENTURY FRENCH MODERNIST PAINTING - PORTRAIT OF FACE
JEAN MARC (1949-2019) 20th CENTURY FRENCH MODERNIST PAINTING - PORTRAIT OF FACE

JEAN MARC (1949-2019) 20th CENTURY FRENCH MODERNIST PAINTING - PORTRAIT OF FACE

By Jean Marc 3

Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire

"Portrait" by Jean Marc (French 1949-2019) watercolour on artist paper signed and dated 97' double sided painting: 12.5 x 9.5 inches provenance: private collection, South of Fran...

Category

20th Century Modern Paintings

Materials

Watercolor

Portrait of Working Class Man
Portrait of Working Class Man

Portrait of Working Class Man

By Samuel Brecher

Located in Surfside, FL

American artist Samuel Brecher (active NY, 1897-1982) Oil on Canvas, Signed lower right ‘S. Brecher’ It is signed at the lower right. Brecher was a very accomplished painter who w...

Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

French, Mid-Century View of a Port dated "59"
French, Mid-Century View of a Port dated "59"

French, Mid-Century View of a Port dated "59"

Located in SANTA FE, NM

View of a Port "59" French Modernist School Oil on canvas Illegibly signed. l.r., dated "59" 28 3/4 x 23 3/4 (30 x 25 frame) inches A positively brilliant, Modernist view of a French port...

Category

1950s Modern Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

1980 Victor Pasmore oil, acrylic and charcoal on canvas 'Abstract', signed
1980 Victor Pasmore oil, acrylic and charcoal on canvas 'Abstract', signed

1980 Victor Pasmore oil, acrylic and charcoal on canvas 'Abstract', signed

By Victor Pasmore

Located in Petworth, West Sussex

Victor Pasmore, R.A. Abstract, 1980 signed with initials (centre right) oil, acrylic and charcoal on canvas 44 x 150cm.; 17¼ x 59in. Executed in 1980. Provenance Sale, Bonhams London...

Category

20th Century Modern Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Charcoal, Oil, Acrylic

Set of 2 Bright Landscape Studies of 1960's British Modernist Drawings
Set of 2 Bright Landscape Studies of 1960's British Modernist Drawings

Set of 2 Bright Landscape Studies of 1960's British Modernist Drawings

By Irina Hale

Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire

Set of Two Paired Studies 1960's British Modernist Drawing by Irina Hale (British 1932-2022) oil crayon drawings on light brown artist paper stuck on A4 artist paper, unframed overal...

Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Paintings

Materials

Oil Crayon

The Death of Priam - Oil Paint - Early 19th Century
The Death of Priam - Oil Paint - Early 19th Century

The Death of Priam - Oil Paint - Early 19th Century

Located in Roma, IT

Oil on canvas realized by an italian neoclassical artist in th early 19th Century. In very good condition, it includes a coeval gilded wooden frame.

Category

Early 19th Century Modern Paintings

Materials

Oil

Flowers in Vase French Modernist Signed & Framed Oil Painting on Canvas
Flowers in Vase French Modernist Signed & Framed Oil Painting on Canvas

Flowers in Vase French Modernist Signed & Framed Oil Painting on Canvas

By Huguette Ginet-Lasnier

Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire

Still Life of Flowers Huguette Ginet-Lasnier (French 1927-2020) signed and inscribed verso framed oil painting on canvas framed: 20 x 17 inches canvas: 16 x 13 inches. All the painti...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Modern Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Moving Forms

Moving Forms

Located in Los Angeles, CA

Moving Forms, c. 1947, oil on canvas, apparently unsigned, 23 ½ x 20 inches, exhibited The Twenty-Seventh Annual Exhibition of the Southern States Art League, Virginia Museum of Fine...

Category

1940s Modern Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Head to Sea, Modernist sailing scene
Head to Sea, Modernist sailing scene

Head to Sea, Modernist sailing scene

By Ralph Eugene Della-Volpe

Located in New York, NY

A vibrant and yet romantic sailing scene which was a favorite series by Della-Volpe. His compelling colorist approach has made his works desirable as he was one of the few artists post-war to be representative in style like Milton Avery and Wolf Kahn. Head to Sea has the hallmark intense and lovely coloration for which Della-Volpe is known. He came out of Abstract Expressionism in the New York school but then pivoted, like Milton Avery to representational, colorist work. The frame is a silvered gold leaf float frame of quality and has a rubbed, antiqued surface...

Category

Early 2000s Modern Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Large French Post Impressionist 1930's Oil Still Life Artists Studio Interior
Large French Post Impressionist 1930's Oil Still Life Artists Studio Interior

Large French Post Impressionist 1930's Oil Still Life Artists Studio Interior

Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire

The Artists Studio Interior French Post Impressionist, first half 20th century oil on canvas, unframed canvas: 29 x 20 inches provenance: private collection condition: very good and ...

Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Paintings

Materials

Oil

Vintage American Modernist Abstract Landscape Framed Original Oil Painting
Vintage American Modernist Abstract Landscape Framed Original Oil Painting

Vintage American Modernist Abstract Landscape Framed Original Oil Painting

Located in Buffalo, NY

Vintage American modernist landscape oil painting. Oil on board. Framed. Measuring: 14 by 17 inches overall, and 10 by 14 painting alone. In excellent original condition. Handsomely...

Category

1950s Modern Paintings

Materials

Oil

1930's Modernist Oil Painting Paris Rooftops Hazel Guggenheim Mckinley Fauvist
1930's Modernist Oil Painting Paris Rooftops Hazel Guggenheim Mckinley Fauvist

1930's Modernist Oil Painting Paris Rooftops Hazel Guggenheim Mckinley Fauvist

By Hazel Guggenheim McKinley

Located in Surfside, FL

Hazel Guggenheim King-Farlow McKinley (American, London, New Orleans, 1903-1995), "Paris Rooftops" c. 1930 Oil paint on wood panel Attributed, dated and titled verso (I am not sure in whose hand not signed by the artist herself). Dimensions H.- 18 in., W.- 15 in., Framed- H.- 26 1/2 in., W.- 23 in. Provenance: From an estate New Orleans, Louisiana. Hazel Guggenheim King-Farlow McKinley (born Barbara Hazel Guggenheim; April 30, 1903 – June 10, 1995) was an American painter, art collector, and art benefactor. Hazel Guggenheim was born in New York City to Benjamin Guggenheim and Fleurette (Seligman) Guggenheim. The marriage united two wealthy German-Jewish families. Born into the well-known Guggenheim family, a niece of Solomon Guggenheim who founded the Guggenheim Museum, she grew up in New York, alongside her sisters Benita Guggenheim and Marguerite Peggy Guggenheim who would become the influential gallery proprietor, art collector, museum founder, and midwife to the Abstract Expressionism art movement. Her father Benjamin gave up much of his financial interest in the family's mining business to start his own business in Paris. With his business failing, in 1912 he set out to return to the United States in time for McKinley's ninth birthday on the Titanic. Following the shipwreck, he drowned aged 46; his body was not recovered. McKinley inherited $450,000. She later inherited money on the deaths of her mother, and of her older sister, Benita, who died in childbirth. The loss of her father haunted McKinley for the rest of her life, and in 1969 she recorded "In Memoriam, Titanic Lifeboat Blues." McKinley began painting as a teenager and was a prolific artist throughout her life. When she fled New York for Paris at age 19 she studied at the Sorbonne and became part of 1920's bohemian Paris, France, where she was taught by key modernism artists of the time. Her primary mediums were ink, water color, tempera, and crayon. Some of her work is hand signed and some is not. In 1928 her sister Peggy moved to London and mar­ried the British writer John Holmes. In 1931, McKinley married the Englishman Denys King-Farlow. They settled in Sussex, UK, and had two children, John King-Farlow, who became a philosopher and poet, and Barbara Benita King-Farlow, who became an artist in her own right. In 1938 Peggy opened Guggenheim Jeune, a London gallery of mod­ern art, starring Wassily Kandinsky, Henry Moore, Salvador dali, Constantin Brancusi, Max Ernst, Pablo Pic­asso and Jean Miro with whom they socialized. Whilst living in the south of England with Denys King-Farlow in the 1930s, McKinley was influenced by a group of avant-garde artists, and had her first solo exhibition in London in April 1937 at the Coolings Gallery. She received instruction from British artists Rowland Suddaby, Raymond Coxon, and Edna Ginesi, becoming associated with the London Group and the Euston Road School. She painted primarily in watercolor. Her work included still-life, portraits, townscapes and landscapes. Although her first work was done in a "slightly plain palette," her later work in the 1930s brightened, sometimes falling within the realm of fauvism. "Under the influence of the Surrealist artists, Hazel's paintings after the 1930's became freer, though her work was far more whimsical and humorous than many artists more closely associated with the surrealism movement." In 1939 McKinley fled Europe due to the impending war and returned to the US, living mostly in California. She took brief art lessons from her sister Peggy's one-time husband Max Ernst and much later attended several summer schools taught by muralist and renowned teacher Xavier Gonzalez. In her life in the United States and abroad, McKinley met many prominent artists of the Paris, London, and New York art scenes including Jackson Pollock. McKinley continued to paint, and ran a small gallery of her own in the late 1950s and early 1960s in West Cornwall, Connecticut. One show at her gallery featured the works of British and Irish painters including Rowland Suddaby, Frank Beteson, Tom Nisbett, and Patrick Swift. McKinley showed two of her own works in the same exhibit, a watercolor painted at Positano, Italy and one painted at the Tuileries, Paris. Another featured work was a surrealistic water color portrait of McKinley by London artist Mervyn Peake. McKinley exhibited her work both in Europe and the United States throughout her long career, mostly at smaller venues. An incomplete listing of her exhibits and museum acquisitions of her work include: Berkshire Museum, the Galerie Raymond Duncan in Paris, Stendahl Galleries, the Jake Zeitlin Gallery, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, the Artists' Own Gallery in London, the Manchester City Art Gallery, and Santa Fe Art Museum. McKinley's work was only once included in a show by her sister Peggy. In 1943 McKinley was selected to exhibit a painting in Peggy's infamous show Exhibition by 31 Women in her New York gallery Art of This Century. The exhibition was radical at the time for being one of the first all-woman exhibitions, as well as showing only abstract or Surrealist works. The Exhibition by 31 Women was conceived by Peggy Guggenheim in collaboration with Marcel Duchamp, who is usually credited with suggesting the idea. The participating artists were selected by a jury that included André Breton, Max Ernst Duchamp, and Guggenheim. Advice was sought from Alfred H. Barr Jr., first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, who provided Guggenheim with five names, of which three were included in the exhibition, Suzy Frelinghuysen, Irene Rice Pereira, and Esphyr Slobodkina. Those already known to Guggenheim through their partners included Xenia Cage, wife of the composer John Cage, Frida Kahlo, wife of Diego Rivera, who was noted for his frescoes, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, wife of the sculptor, Hans Jean Arp, and Jacqueline Lamba, ex-wife of the surrealist André Breton. Guggenheim’s sister, Hazel Guggenheim McKinley and her daughter, Pegeen Vail Guggenheim exhibited. Also in the exhibition was the burlesque dancer, Gypsy Rose Lee, another friend of Guggenheim, who was possibly included more to help publicise the event than for her artistic skills. Other artists were friends of Guggenheim or of Max Ernst. One, Dorothea Tanning, was Ernst's lover, leading Guggenheim to say: "I realized that I should have only had thirty women in the show". Only one artist is known to have refused the invitation to submit works, Georgia O'Keeffe, who reportedly responded that she wished to be identified as a painter, and not singled out because of her gender. In the late 1950s, McKinley moved back to Europe for a while, before returning to the United States in 1969. She lived in New Orleans until her death in 1995. On her death, her only living son, John King-Farlow, wrote a poem in his mother's honor, entitled "Eulogy For My Mother (Hazel Guggenheim McKinley, Artist)." A short obituary distributed by the Associated Press noted she was a member of the illustrious New York Guggenheim family, that she was determined to make a name for herself as an artist, that her art works were shown in museums in the United States and Europe, and were in the collections of such celebrities as Greer Garson, Benny Goodman, and Jason Robards. In 1998 after her death, one of her paintings was exhibited in Peggy Guggenheim's Venice home museum the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni. Guggenheim’s work in various media and her connections to influential artists and collectors provide glimpses into the complex tapestry of the art world in the first half of the 20th century. In her later life she settled in New Orleans, where she continued painting, exhibiting, and studying art into her eighties at Newcomb College, New Orleans. She was part of a regional art scene that included Ida Kohlmeyer, George Rodrigue, Noel Rockmore and Hunt Slonem. Towards the end of her life while confined to bed, her last works were colored pen drawings and sketches. McKinley collected major contemporary artworks and she donated many of these works to public institutions. She donated over 15 works to Wakefield Art Gallery, UK, in the 1930s, and in 1938 presented the painting Cossacks...

Category

1930s Modern Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Mid Century Abstract
Mid Century Abstract

Mid Century Abstract, 1940

$595Sale Price|33% Off

Mid Century Abstract

Located in Buffalo, NY

Modernist abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas, circa 1940. Unsigned. Image size, 37"L x 25"H.

Category

1940s Modern Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

1975 Modernist Vintage Original Figurative Oil Painting - What the Mirror Saw
1975 Modernist Vintage Original Figurative Oil Painting - What the Mirror Saw

1975 Modernist Vintage Original Figurative Oil Painting - What the Mirror Saw

Located in Bristol, GB

WHAT THE MIRROR SAW Size: 53 x 52.5 cm (including frame) Oil on canvas A quietly arresting figurative painting that captures a fleeting, introspective moment seen through a reflecti...

Category

1970s Modern Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Harvest
Harvest

Harvest

By Ketut Liyer

Located in Roma, IT

Harvest is an acrylic painting on canvas. With frame. It is signed “Kt. Lijer. Pengosekan. Ubud. Bali” on the lower right corner. This artwork is shipped from Italy. Under existing...

Category

20th Century Modern Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Still Life Watermelon Monstera
Still Life Watermelon Monstera

Still Life Watermelon Monstera

Located in Zofingen, AG

shipped in roll Acrylic on canvas Size: 80 x 100 x 2 cm Style: Modern interpretation of Fauvist techniques Professional-grade acrylics on canvas Signed by the artist with certificat...

Category

2010s Modern Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Sunspot 126 - Tall Modern Shiny Resin Minimalist Vibrant Yellow Abstract Art
Sunspot 126 - Tall Modern Shiny Resin Minimalist Vibrant Yellow Abstract Art

Sunspot 126 - Tall Modern Shiny Resin Minimalist Vibrant Yellow Abstract Art

By Ricky Hunt

Located in Los Angeles, CA

Ricky Hunt’s mixed media minimalist wall art is influenced by his tumultuous past that led to a paradigm shift in creativity and life. He covers the wood panel with layers of acrylic...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Modern Paintings

Materials

Resin, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Wood Panel

Heritage 2

Heritage 2

By Carl Linstrum

Located in Atlanta, GA

Carl Linstrum's "Other Side," "Fade," and "Emerge" series of paintings speak to disappearing ecosystems in a time of increasing climate crises, while celebrating the sheer beauty of ...

Category

2010s Modern Paintings

Materials

Paper, Oil, Acrylic

An Ideal Head of a Woman
An Ideal Head of a Woman

An Ideal Head of a Woman

By Alfred Henry Maurer

Located in New York, NY

In the tradition of Modigliani, Maurer's depictions of women are expressive and lively. America had very few modernists who painted in this manner but Maurer is famous for exactly t...

Category

1920s Modern Paintings

Materials

Gesso, Oil, Board

Modern paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Modern 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, red and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Bernard Labbe, Christel Haag, Sunil Das, and Antonio Feltrinelli. 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 Modern paintings, so small editions measuring 1 inches across are also available.