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Neo-Expressionist Paintings

NEO-EXPRESSIONIST STYLE

A resurgence of interest in Expressionism, Pop art, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and other movements gained steam among artists of the 1970s and ’80s, in part as a reaction to the austerity of the prevailing minimalism and Conceptual art of the era. A decadent, bold and brash art style called Neo-Expressionism saw painters returning to figural representation, creating highly textured works that were imbued with intensely personal narratives.

Neo-Expressionist paintings are sensuous in nature and highly subjective in meaning. Expressive brushwork, highly pigmented colors and layered forms and materials lent sculptural attributes to the work and were used to depict symbolic narratives from history, mythology and the artist’s personal experience. 

Prominent figures such as Jean-Michel Basquiat led the Neo-Expressionist movement in the United States with paintings and prints that were raw, emotional and often violent in nature. In Germany, Die Neuen Wilden (the “New Fauves”) was the name given to a group of postwar artists that included the likes of sculptor Georg Baselitz and Gerhard Richter, a painter and photographer who explored the possibilities of both abstraction and realism, sometimes in a single piece. The work of the New Fauves — labeled as such for its return to Fauvism’s textured brushwork and use of vibrant colors — shares commonalities with Neo-Expressionism, and Baselitz was a pioneer of the movement in Europe. In addition, Willem de Kooning’s pulsating action paintings and Julian Schnabel’s experimentation with the materiality of paintings also took shape during this period.

“I was trying to make paintings different from the paintings that I saw a lot of at the time, which were mostly minimal, and they were highbrow and alienating, and I wanted to make very direct paintings that most people would feel the emotion behind when they saw them,” said Basquiat. 

Neo-Expressionism generated some polarizing opinions, with some celebrating the revival of personal subjectivity in art while others criticizing the movement for being too commercially driven and nostalgic. But most experts agree that Neo-Expressionism was a huge commercial success and culturally impactful, paving the way for the postmodern work of artists like Richter and Sigmar Polke

Find original Neo-Expressionist paintings, prints, mixed-media works and other art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Neo-Expressionist
Landscape 130 by Jean Krille - Oil on canvas 50x35 cm
Landscape 130 by Jean Krille - Oil on canvas 50x35 cm

Landscape 130 by Jean Krille - Oil on canvas 50x35 cm

By Jean Krille

Located in Geneva, CH

Jean Krillé’s paintings are known for their expressive use of color and dynamic, abstract forms, blending realism with abstraction in his depictions of nature. His landscapes often f...

Category

Late 20th Century Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Masonite, Oil

Banksy Working. Time is of the essence. Contemporary Figurative Painting
Banksy Working. Time is of the essence. Contemporary Figurative Painting

Banksy Working. Time is of the essence. Contemporary Figurative Painting

By Sax Berlin

Located in Brecon, Powys

This Neo-expressionist piece from Berlin's Atlantic studio conveys all the immediacy of creating street art or graffiti. Outsider and street/graffiti artists have, since the inceptio...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil, Acrylic

Caldentey Black and White original neo-expressionist acrylic painting
Caldentey Black and White original neo-expressionist acrylic painting

Caldentey Black and White original neo-expressionist acrylic painting

By Toni Caldentey

Located in CORAL GABLES - MIAMI, FL

" La lluita. original neo-expressionist acrylic painting contemporary work by the mallorquin artist Toni CALDENTEY virtual framed Perfect state CALDENTEY, Toni - (Portocolom, Mallorc...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Acrylic

Cafe de Flore - Paris
Cafe de Flore - Paris

Cafe de Flore - Paris

By Paloma Hinojosa

Located in Atlanta, GA

This painting is in excellent condition and has only been shown in a gallery. Her works were recently featured in the March issue of American Art Collector magazine 2022. A hardbound-book is included with your purchase. Whether depicting lively night parties on the beach, Parisian streets, or bustling sidewalk cafes of her native Madrid, the paintings of Paloma Hinojosa...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Cuban Artist Pastel Drawing African American Emilio Cruz Bonnie & Clyde Painting
Cuban Artist Pastel Drawing African American Emilio Cruz Bonnie & Clyde Painting

Cuban Artist Pastel Drawing African American Emilio Cruz Bonnie & Clyde Painting

Located in Surfside, FL

Emilio Cruz (1938-2004) Bonnie and Clyde Pastel on paper Hand signed lower right Dimensions Framed H 15-7/8" W 18-1/2", Sight H 13-1/2" W 16-1/8" Emilio Antonio Cruz (1938 – 2004) was a Cuban American artist who lived most of his life in New York City. His work is held in several major museums in the United States. Emilio Antonio Cruz was an American Artist of Cuban descent. He was born in the Bronx on March 15, 1938. He studied at the Art Students League of New York with Edwin Dickinson, George Grosz and Frank J. Reilly and at The New School in New York City, and finally at the Seong Moy School of Painting and Graphic Arts in Provincetown, Massachusetts. As a young artist in the 1960s, Cruz was connected with other artists who were applying abstract expressionism concepts to figurative art such as Lester Johnson, Red Grooms, Mimi Gross, Bob Thompson and Jan Muller. He combined human and animal figures with imagery from archaeology and natural history to create disturbing, dreamlike paintings. Cruz received a John Hay Whitney Fellowship and awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation and from the National Endowment for the Arts. In the late 1968, Emilio and wife Patricia Cruz moved to St. Louis to work with Julius Hemphill and the Black Artists Group. He served as director for the visual arts program, which also included painters Oliver Jackson and Manuel Hughes. In addition to artistic contributions, the couple participated in city-wide civil rights protests and rent strikes. Cruz moved to Chicago and taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1970s, where he exhibited widely and was represented by the Walter Kelly Gallery. He wrote two plays, Homeostasis: Once More the Scorpion and The Absence Held Fast to Its Presence. These were first performed at the Open Eye Theater in New York in 1981, and later were included in the World Theater Festival in Nancy and Paris, France, and in Italy. In 1982 he returned to New York where he began to exhibit again. In the late 1980s he resumed teaching at the Pratt Institute and at New York University. Harry Rand, Curator of 20th Century Painting and Sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, described Emilio Cruz as one of the important pioneers of American Modernism of the 1960s for his fusion of Abstract Expressionist art with figuration. Geno Rodriguez, Curator and Executive Director of The Alternative Museum, wrote in 1985, "Emilio Cruz, is a brilliant and impassioned artist whose current paintings are monumental, imbued with intelligence, fury and an apt sense of irony. They reflect the turbulent world within which we live." Geoffrey Jacques wrote in 1990, "Emilio Cruz paints humanity’s essence. Mythology and archeology are the foremost concerns of the painter Emilio Cruz. Dinosaurs, skeletal humans and fossil-like images are used in his work as metaphoric signposts in a consideration of the basic questions of existence." Art historian and curator Paul Staiti wrote in 1997, "Emilio Cruz's Homo sapiens series is a strange and haunting genealogy of the modern soul... What is at stake here more than biopolitical culture, is the remystification of the body and mapping of consciousness ... For all the trauma, explicit and implicit, Cruz's style is masterful, classical, even beautiful." Exhibitions Cruz held his first solo exhibition at the Zabriskie Gallery in New York in 1963. Afterwards his work was included in many group and solo exhibitions, including the Anita Shapolsky Gallery in 1986 and 1991, museum exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1987, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1997. In 1994, Cruz's work was shown as part of the American contingent at the IV Bienal Internacional de Pintura en Cuenca, Ecuador. Other American artists exhibiting at this show were Donald Locke, Philemona Williamson, Whitfield Lovell...

Category

20th Century Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Paper, Oil Pastel

Abstract Expressionist Abstract Large Oil on Canvas, Le Pèlerin.
Abstract Expressionist Abstract Large Oil on Canvas, Le Pèlerin.

Abstract Expressionist Abstract Large Oil on Canvas, Le Pèlerin.

Located in Cotignac, FR

Expressionist abstract oil on canvas by French artist Bernard Duvert. The painting is signed bottom left, dated and titled to the rear stretchers and with exhibition numbers. A magn...

Category

Late 20th Century Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Landscape 104 by Jean Krille - Oil on masonite 100x100cm
Landscape 104 by Jean Krille - Oil on masonite 100x100cm

Landscape 104 by Jean Krille - Oil on masonite 100x100cm

By Jean Krille

Located in Geneva, CH

Jean Krillé’s paintings are known for their expressive use of color and dynamic, abstract forms, blending realism with abstraction in his depictions of nature. His landscapes often f...

Category

Late 20th Century Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil

Swoon Song, 2023 - Hunt Slonem
Swoon Song, 2023 - Hunt Slonem

Swoon Song, 2023 - Hunt Slonem

By Hunt Slonem

Located in Porto, 13

The painting "Swoon Song" by Hunt Slonem, created in 2023, is an oil on canvas piece that measures 152 x 178 cm (60 x 70 inches). The work is in excellent, new condition, and feature...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil

Landscape n°94 by Jean Krillé - Oil on wood 59x79 cm
Landscape n°94 by Jean Krillé - Oil on wood 59x79 cm

Landscape n°94 by Jean Krillé - Oil on wood 59x79 cm

By Jean Krille

Located in Geneva, CH

Oil on wood sold with frame Total size with frame 61x81 cm Jean Krillé is a Swiss artist from Geneva, recognized for his significant contributions to contemporary art. Born in the 2...

Category

1980s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil

Landscape 122 by Jean Krille - Oil on masonite 70x50 cm
Landscape 122 by Jean Krille - Oil on masonite 70x50 cm

Landscape 122 by Jean Krille - Oil on masonite 70x50 cm

By Jean Krille

Located in Geneva, CH

Jean Krillé’s paintings are known for their expressive use of color and dynamic, abstract forms, blending realism with abstraction in his depictions of nature. His landscapes often f...

Category

Late 20th Century Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Wood, Oil

Patterson   Boat  Vertical  sin titulo 9. acrylic painting
Patterson   Boat  Vertical  sin titulo 9. acrylic painting

Patterson Boat Vertical sin titulo 9. acrylic painting

Located in CORAL GABLES - MIAMI, FL

Patterson. boats. vertical . Licenciado en Bellas Artes por ISPEJV, en la Habana en 2002, especialización en Restauración y Conservación de pintura Mural y caballete. Ha ejercido...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Warning Code Red !    Contemporary Neo Expressionist Painting
Warning Code Red !    Contemporary Neo Expressionist Painting

Warning Code Red ! Contemporary Neo Expressionist Painting

By Sax Berlin

Located in Brecon, Powys

Primary, rich red defines this painting, yet the face is so magnetic. Berlin is hugely conscious of the environment and these highly immediate works are his way of trying to draw att...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Hunt Slonem "Wave" Blue Diamond Dust Bunny
Hunt Slonem "Wave" Blue Diamond Dust Bunny

Hunt Slonem "Wave" Blue Diamond Dust Bunny

By Hunt Slonem

Located in Houston, TX

Hunt Slonem "Wave" Blue Diamond Dust Bunny A rabbit gestured in white and blue on a matching Diamond Dust background in a vintage frame Unframed: 10 x 8 inches Framed: 16 x 14 inche...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Glass, Resin, Oil, Panel

Hunt Slonem "Cardinals" Bird Couple in Red on a White Background
Hunt Slonem "Cardinals" Bird Couple in Red on a White Background

Hunt Slonem "Cardinals" Bird Couple in Red on a White Background

By Hunt Slonem

Located in Houston, TX

Hunt Slonem "Cardinals" Bird Couple in Red on a White Background A pair of birds gestured in red and black on a white background in a vintage frame Unframed: 10 x 8 inches Framed: 1...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Puesta de sol en el Campo de Golf  (Sunset on the Golf Course)
Puesta de sol en el Campo de Golf  (Sunset on the Golf Course)

Puesta de sol en el Campo de Golf (Sunset on the Golf Course)

By Paloma Hinojosa

Located in Atlanta, GA

This painting is in excellent condition and has only been shown in a gallery. Her works were recently featured in the March issue of American Art Collector magazine 2022. A hardbound-book is included with your purchase. Whether depicting lively night parties on the beach, Parisian streets, or bustling sidewalk cafes of her native Madrid, the paintings of Paloma Hinojosa...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Tableau n°80 by Jean Krillé - Oil on wood 75x100 cm
Tableau n°80 by Jean Krillé - Oil on wood 75x100 cm

Tableau n°80 by Jean Krillé - Oil on wood 75x100 cm

By Jean Krille

Located in Geneva, CH

Of Germanic descent, the painter Jean Krillé was born in 1923 in Switzerland. His father, writer and poet, oriented him towards art and culture. From the age of 16, he enrolled at th...

Category

Late 20th Century Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil

Cambell's Warhol Soup.  Large Neo Expressionist Oil Painting
Cambell's Warhol Soup.  Large Neo Expressionist Oil Painting

Cambell's Warhol Soup. Large Neo Expressionist Oil Painting

By Sax Berlin

Located in Brecon, Powys

Where once Warhol led the charge Sax Berlin has assumed the mantle and is in the vanguard of the renaissance of Neo-Expressionism. This is a witty take on the famous Campbell Soup sc...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Gold Leaf

Tableau n°75 by Jean Krillé - Oil on wood 80x100 cm
Tableau n°75 by Jean Krillé - Oil on wood 80x100 cm

Tableau n°75 by Jean Krillé - Oil on wood 80x100 cm

By Jean Krille

Located in Geneva, CH

Of Germanic descent, the painter Jean Krillé was born in 1923 in Switzerland. His father, writer and poet, oriented him towards art and culture. From the age of 16, he enrolled at th...

Category

1980s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil

Hunt Slonem "Field" Black and Pink Bunny
Hunt Slonem "Field" Black and Pink Bunny

Hunt Slonem "Field" Black and Pink Bunny

By Hunt Slonem

Located in Houston, TX

Hunt Slonem "Field" Black and Pink Bunny A single rabbit gestured in black on a pink background in a vintage frame Unframed: 8 x 6 inches Framed: 12.5 x 10.5 inches *Painting is fra...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Vineyards - n°82 by Jean Krillé - Oil on wood 100x100 cm
Vineyards - n°82 by Jean Krillé - Oil on wood 100x100 cm

Vineyards - n°82 by Jean Krillé - Oil on wood 100x100 cm

By Jean Krille

Located in Geneva, CH

Of Germanic descent, the painter Jean Krillé was born in 1923 in Switzerland. His father, writer and poet, oriented him towards art and culture. From the age of 16, he enrolled at th...

Category

Late 20th Century Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil

Untitled (0673)
Untitled (0673)

Untitled (0673)

By Hunt Slonem

Located in New York, NY

This whimsical and sophisticated painting was realized by the esteemed contemporary painter, Hunt Slonem in 2016. It presents a stylized rabbit in profile, rendered with loose and ex...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Hunt Slonem "Blue Diamond Dust Helena" White and Blue Bunny
Hunt Slonem "Blue Diamond Dust Helena" White and Blue Bunny

Hunt Slonem "Blue Diamond Dust Helena" White and Blue Bunny

By Hunt Slonem

Located in Houston, TX

Hunt Slonem "Blue Diamond Dust Helena" White and Blue Bunny A single rabbit gestured in white on a blue background in a vintage frame Unframed: 10 x 8 inches Framed: 14.5 x 12.5 inc...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil, Acrylic, Panel

"Heroin Kills" Large Contemporary Neo Expressionist Oil Painting
"Heroin Kills" Large Contemporary Neo Expressionist Oil Painting

"Heroin Kills" Large Contemporary Neo Expressionist Oil Painting

By Sax Berlin

Located in Brecon, Powys

Heroin Kills is a cry from the soul from Berlin. A contemporary of Basquiat in the New York art scene of the 1980's Berlin was very much on the frontline when it came to witnessing t...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil, Acrylic

Blue Diamond Dust

Blue Diamond Dust

By Hunt Slonem

Located in Woodmere, OH

Hunt Slonem (b. 1951) is an internationally celebrated American artist whose vibrant and instantly recognizable works have made him one of the most collectible contemporary painters ...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Wood, Oil, Acrylic

EchoLayer: Eureka - Original Expressionist Floral Abstract Figurative Art
EchoLayer: Eureka - Original Expressionist Floral Abstract Figurative Art

EchoLayer: Eureka - Original Expressionist Floral Abstract Figurative Art

By Soren Grau

Located in Los Angeles, CA

Drawing inspiration from cultural icons and global events, Soren Grau's street art-infused Neo-expressionism invites art enthusiasts to be a part of a narrative larger than life. In ...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Plexiglass, Mixed Media

Hunt Slonem "Siddhas and Butterflies Play of Consciousness"
Hunt Slonem "Siddhas and Butterflies Play of Consciousness"

Hunt Slonem "Siddhas and Butterflies Play of Consciousness"

By Hunt Slonem

Located in Houston, TX

Hunt Slonem "Siddhas and Butterflies Play of Consciousness" Multicolor Faces and Butterflies Pink, yellow, blue and white butterflies and Siddha faces on a gold scored background Unf...

Category

Early 2000s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Rights". Contemporary Neo Expressionist Painting
"Rights". Contemporary Neo Expressionist Painting

"Rights". Contemporary Neo Expressionist Painting

By Sax Berlin

Located in Brecon, Powys

The goat plays a strange role in mythology and legend; perhaps its ambivalence, appearing on both sides of the spectrum, give it the appeal it enjoys. Most ancient cultures from the Assyrians via the ancient Greeks and Vikings have a goat appear in their legends. Berlin’s goat skulls...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Gold Leaf

Hunt Slonem "White Butterfly's Lakeside" Scored Butterflies on White Background
Hunt Slonem "White Butterfly's Lakeside" Scored Butterflies on White Background

Hunt Slonem "White Butterfly's Lakeside" Scored Butterflies on White Background

By Hunt Slonem

Located in Houston, TX

Hunt Slonem "White Butterfly's Lakeside" Scored Butterflies on White Background Multicolor butterflies on a scored background in a vintage frame Unframed: 39.5 x 62.5 inches Framed:...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Hunt Slonem "Yellow Tulip" Multicolor Flower
Hunt Slonem "Yellow Tulip" Multicolor Flower

Hunt Slonem "Yellow Tulip" Multicolor Flower

By Hunt Slonem

Located in Houston, TX

Hunt Slonem "Yellow Tulip" Multicolor Flower A single tulip gestured in red, yellow, orange and green on a blue background in a vintage frame Unframed: 10 x 8 inches Framed: 14.5 x ...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Untitled
Untitled

Peter Robert KeilUntitled, 1987

$1,400Sale Price|22% Off

Untitled

By Peter Robert Keil

Located in Summit, NJ

Great piece by Peter Keil. The piece is from his family's private collection. It is framed in its original gold wood frame with a linen liner. Background is a beautiful blue with ma...

Category

1980s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Hunt Slonem "Untitled" Pink Bunny
Hunt Slonem "Untitled" Pink Bunny

Hunt Slonem "Untitled" Pink Bunny

By Hunt Slonem

Located in Houston, TX

Hunt Slonem "Untitled" Pink Bunny A single rabbit gestured in black on a light pink background in a vintage frame Unframed: 10 x 8 inches Framed: 14.5 x 12.5 inches *Painting is fra...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Italian Neo Figurative Pop Art Painting Italo Scanga Artist Frame Memphis Cubist
Italian Neo Figurative Pop Art Painting Italo Scanga Artist Frame Memphis Cubist

Italian Neo Figurative Pop Art Painting Italo Scanga Artist Frame Memphis Cubist

By Italo Scanga

Located in Surfside, FL

Italo Scanga (Italian American 1932-2001) Mixed Media (with hand painted sculpture frame) Charcoal, gouache, acrylic paint, paper 1987-1988 Dimensions: Measures 26.5" x 20.5" x .75" framed. Hand signed and dated in the lower right corner. Provenance: On the back, there is writing to indicate this piece was included in a 1990 showing at Chico State's University Art Gallery. This painting and painted frame by Italo Scanga, epitomizes the characteristics of his oeuvre. It features a face and cypress tree. Polychrome and vibrant art from the Memphis Milano era. Italo Scanga (June 6, 1932 - July 7, 2001), an Italian-born American artist, was known for his sculptures, prints and, paintings, mostly created from found objects. In his youth in Calabria, Italy he worked as a cabinetmaker's apprentice and studies sculpture with a man who carved statues of saints. Italo Scanga was an innovative neo Dada, neo-Expressionist, and neo-Cubist multimedia artist who made assemblage, collage, sculptures of ordinary objects and created prints, glass, and ceramic works. Modern Italian abstract geometric folk art. Scanga's materials included natural objects like branches and seashells, as well as kitsch figurines, castoff musical instruments and decorative trinkets salvaged from flea markets and thrift shops. He combined these ingredients into free-standing assemblages, which he then painted. Although visually ebullient, the results sometimes referred to gruesome episodes from Greek mythology or the lives and deaths of martyred saints. He considered his artistic influences to be sweepingly pan-cultural, from African sculpture, to Cubism to Giorgio de Chirico. He often collaborated with the sculptor Dale Chihuly, who was a close friend. Constructed of wood and glass, found objects or fabric, his ensembles reflect a trio of activities—working, eating, and praying. These activities dominate the lives of those who live close to the land, but they are also activities that are idealized by many who contemplate, romantically, a simpler, bucolic life. Italo graduated from Michigan State University where he befriended fellow artists Richard Merkin and David Pease. He studied under Lindsey Decker...

Category

1980s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Paint, Wood, Paper, Charcoal, Acrylic, Gouache

Wings

Wings

By Hunt Slonem

Located in Woodmere, OH

Hunt Slonem (b. 1951) is an internationally celebrated American artist whose vibrant and instantly recognizable works have made him one of the most collectible contemporary painters ...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Wood, Oil

Rhino Horn Artist Space Dreams 1973 Figurative Abstract Expressionist Jay Milder
Rhino Horn Artist Space Dreams 1973 Figurative Abstract Expressionist Jay Milder

Rhino Horn Artist Space Dreams 1973 Figurative Abstract Expressionist Jay Milder

By Jay Milder

Located in Surfside, FL

Hand signed, dated and titled verso Jay Milder (born 1934) is an American artist and a figurative expressionist painter of the second generation New York School. Old Testament themes such as Jacob's Ladder and Noah’s Ark, and the Jewish mystical beliefs of the Kabbalah, are recurring themes in Milder’s paintings which are presented as archetypal images that recur in the basic karma, make-up and need of human nature. Internationally exhibited, Milder is included in the collections of many national and international museums. He has been the subject of two, recent retrospectives in Brazil in 2007 at the National Museum Brasilia and, in 2006, at the Museum of Modern Art, in Rio de Janeiro. He is renowned in Sao Paulo, one of the major international centers for street and public art, as a seminal influence on graffiti artists. Jay Milder was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1934. His grandparents, who came from the Ukraine, were descendants of the Hasidic mystic, Rabbi Nachman. As he listened to family stories his interest in spiritualism and mysticism increased, and became an important influence on his philosophy of life and art. Later, when he arrived in New York, he was drawn to the Theosophical Society and the teaching of Helena Blavatsky. In 1954 Milder visited Europe where he studied painting with André L’Hote, and sculpture with Ossip Zadkine. He spent much time studying at the Louvre Museum, and at the studio of Stanley Hayter. During his Paris years the paintings of the Jewish painter Chaim Soutine, primarily influenced him. Milder returned to the United States in 1956, and he began studying painting at the Chicago Art Institute. He exhibited with the Momentum Group, an alliance of artists who were particularly dedicated to the progression of figurative art and its global origins. In 1957, Milder spent the summer in Mexico for a summer where he exhibited in Puebla. That year he received the Mexican Government’s Honor Award for artists. In the summer of 1958, Milder studied with Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He exhibited his work at the Sun Gallery, with his contemporaries, including Mary Frank, Red Grooms, Bob Thompson, Lester Johnson, Emilio Cruz and Alex Katz, among others. During this period his painting began to incorporate iconography of birds, animals, humans and animal/human hybrids. In 1958, Milder, Bob Thompson and Red Grooms, founded the City Gallery in the Chelsea section of New York City. The gallery moved downtown and became the Delancey Street Museum and an early site for ‘Happenings’,which Milder participated in. He showed his first major series called Subway Runners in 1960 at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York City. Milder began a group of smaller paintings, entitled “Messiah Series”, in the late 1960s. These were fully expressionistic earth toned pictures, and he completed around 250 paintings in the series, based on biblical themes from the Old Testament. When 40 of these paintings were shown in a traveling exhibition premiering at the Richard Green Gallery in New York City, in 1987, art critic Donald Kuspit wrote in ArtForum Magazine: “after Nolde’s biblical pictures, these are the best and most integral group of biblical pictures in the 20th century.” During the 1970s, Milder co-founded a collective group called Rhino Horn with Peter Passuntino, Peter Dean, Benny Andrews, Nicholas Sperakis, Michael Fauerbach, Ken Bowman, Leonel Gongora, and Bill Barrell. Rhino Horn continued a style promoting politically and socially driven American Figurative Expressionism, when many people in the art world and society were focused on Pop Art and Minimalism. From the 1970s to today, much of Milder's artworks have been centered around interpretations and the visual energy of the Kabbalah. Milder's art has been the subject of two retrospectives in Brazil in 2007 at the National Museum Brasilia and, in 2006, at the Museum of Modern Art, in Rio de Janeiro. In Summer of 2009 he was in Brazil where at this time he painted a commissioned mural alongside Brazilian street artist, Eduardo Kobra in Sao Paulo. Jay Milder’s paintings have undergone various stylistic changes since the 1950s. However the most common and important consistency has been his organic form of Expressionism. Biblical references have always played an important role in Milder’s work. For Milder the Kabbalah underlies all aspects of reality including not only the way a painting is conceived and executed, but also its impact on the visual environment around us. Jay Milder's work is in the permanent collection of many galleries and museums throughout the world, including The Tel-Aviv Museum of Art in Tel-Aviv, Israel, The Provincetown Art Association and Museum in Provincetown, Massachusetts, The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, and the Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio. He has been awarded the Mexican Government’s Honor Award for artists in 1957, a Rainbow Arts Foundation Award at Exhibition Museum, Guadalajara, Mexico in 1965, he was honored as Professor Emeritus at City College of New York in 1991, and in 1999 he was the Cultural Exchange representative between America and Brazil at Belles Artes Museum, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Jay Milder American Figurative Expressionist Painter of the Second Generation New York School Jay Milder (1934–2026) was an American figurative expressionist painter associated with the second generation of the New York School. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Milder drew on a deep well of influences — from Hasidic mysticism and the Kabbalah to the jazz clubs of North Omaha and the painterly traditions of European modernism — to forge a body of work centered on archetypal, biblically rooted imagery, most notably Jacob's Ladder and Noah's Ark. Early Training and European Influence In the early 1950s, Milder traveled to Paris to study at La Grande Chaumière and the Sorbonne, taking painting classes with André Lhote and sculpture instruction with Ossip Zadkine. There he encountered the work of Chaim Soutine, whose expressive, gestural approach to form left a lasting imprint on Milder's painterly style. He returned to the United States in 1956 and continued his studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was introduced to Hans Hofmann's push/pull compositional theory — a foundational concept of Abstract Expressionism. New York School and the City Gallery In 1958, Milder co-founded the artist-run City Gallery in a shared Flatiron District loft with Red Grooms, giving early exhibition space to artists including Claes Oldenburg and Jim Dine. Alongside contemporaries Bob Thompson, Lester Johnson, Emilio Cruz, and Alex Katz, Milder exhibited at the influential Sun Gallery, developing a figurative vocabulary populated by birds, animals, and human/animal hybrid forms. His breakthrough "Subway Runners" series debuted at Martha Jackson Gallery in New York in 1964 — dense, impasto oil paintings depicting commuters in motion through the city's transit system. Rhino Horn and Mature Style During the 1970s, Milder co-founded the Rhino Horn collective alongside Peter Passuntino, Peter Dean, Benny Andrews, and others, furthering a commitment to figurative expressionism against the prevailing tides of Minimalism and Pop Art. Throughout his career, biblical and Kabbalistic themes remained central to his practice, which art historian George Nelson Preston described as "trance-like" in a 1976 Arts magazine profile. Museum Collections and Legacy Milder's work is held in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the New Museum, the Chrysler Museum of Art, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, among others. He was the subject of major retrospectives in Brazil, including at the Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro (2006) and the National Museum, Brasília (2007), and in 2009 painted a commissioned mural in São Paulo alongside Brazilian street artist Eduardo Kobra. He is represented by Eric Firestone Gallery, which mounted the solo exhibition Jay Milder: Broadway Nonstop, Subway Paintings from the 1950s and '60s in 2022. Milder died on May 27, 2026, at the age of 92, leaving behind a singular body of work bridging Abstract Expressionism, Jewish mysticism, and the raw energy of postwar New York City. Keywords: Jay Milder, figurative expressionism, second generation New York School, Subway Runners series, Kabbalah painting...

Category

1970s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Hunt Slonem "Awaiting Flutter" Multicolor Butterflies
Hunt Slonem "Awaiting Flutter" Multicolor Butterflies

Hunt Slonem "Awaiting Flutter" Multicolor Butterflies

By Hunt Slonem

Located in Houston, TX

Hunt Slonem "Awaiting Flutter" Multicolor Butterflies A group of seven butterflies on a scored gold metallic background in a vintage frame Unframed: 22 x 30 inches Framed: 26.5 x 34...

Category

2010s Neo-Expressionist Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Neo-expressionist paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Neo-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, red, pink and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Hunt Slonem, Enzio Wenk, Sax Berlin, and Jean Sanglar. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Acrylic 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 Neo-Expressionist paintings, so small editions measuring 1 inches across are also available. Prices for 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 $39 and tops out at $215,000, while the average work sells for $4,387.