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Conceptual Black and White Photography

CONCEPTUAL STYLE

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.

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Item Ships From: Europe
Style: Conceptual
William S Burroughs, by Robert Mapplethorpe
Located in London, GB
Gelatin silver print 9 3/4 x 7 7/8 in 24.9 x 20.1 cm Printed by Radar Publikationen and Edition K.L.A.G. credit stamps verso. Photographers credit stamp verso.
Category

20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper

Tacita Dean, Aerial View of Teignmouth Electron - Contemporary Photography
Located in Hamburg, DE
Tacita Dean (British, born 1965) Aerial View of Teignmouth Electron, Cayman Brac 16th of September 1998, 2000 Medium: Gelatin silver print on paper Dimensions: 21 x 26 cm (8 1/4 x 10...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 9-1-56 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 9-1-56 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 28,4 x 19,5 cm (11 1/8 x 7 5/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practically reinventing photography from scratch, reconstitutes pictorialism along with it, and not as a distortion of the medium but as something like its essence. What counts for him is not only the image - just one moment in the photographic process - but also the chemical activity of the materials, which is never entirely stable or complete, and the delimitation of the results via cropping and framing. Marginal and exceptionally voyeuristic, in his methods Tichý could be described as an “art brut photographer” yet he is also marked by classical influences. Though his images are produced with poor-quality equipment and carelessly shot, they offer an idiosyncratic and almost hallucinatory vision of a fantastical, eroticised reality. With his endless return to the same subject and the volume and regularity of his production, Tichý’s work draws many parallels to certain practices of conceptual art during the same period. – Art, Black and White...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 2-059 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 2-059 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 19,6 x 12,5 cm (7 3/4 x 4 7/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practically reinventing photography from scratch, reconstitutes pictorialism along with it, and not as a distortion of the medium but as something like its essence. What counts for him is not only the image - just one moment in the photographic process - but also the chemical activity of the materials, which is never entirely stable or complete, and the delimitation of the results via cropping and framing. Marginal and exceptionally voyeuristic, in his methods Tichý could be described as an “art brut photographer” yet he is also marked by classical influences. Though his images are produced with poor-quality equipment and carelessly shot, they offer an idiosyncratic and almost hallucinatory vision of a fantastical, eroticised reality. With his endless return to the same subject and the volume and regularity of his production, Tichý’s work draws many parallels to certain practices of conceptual art during the same period. – Art, Black and White...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 3-8-185 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 3-8-185 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 14,9 x 10,4 cm (5 7/8 x 4 1/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practically reinventing photography from scratch, reconstitutes pictorialism along with it, and not as a distortion of the medium but as something like its essence. What counts for him is not only the image - just one moment in the photographic process - but also the chemical activity of the materials, which is never entirely stable or complete, and the delimitation of the results via cropping and framing. Marginal and exceptionally voyeuristic, in his methods Tichý could be described as an “art brut photographer” yet he is also marked by classical influences. Though his images are produced with poor-quality equipment and carelessly shot, they offer an idiosyncratic and almost hallucinatory vision of a fantastical, eroticised reality. With his endless return to the same subject and the volume and regularity of his production, Tichý’s work draws many parallels to certain practices of conceptual art during the same period. – Art, Black and White...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-3-11 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-3-11 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 22,9 x 17,1 cm (9 x 6 3/4 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, pract...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 2-070 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 2-070 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 18,1 x 13,2 cm (7 1/8 x 5 1/4 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practically reinventing photography from scratch, reconstitutes pictorialism along with it, and not as a distortion of the medium but as something like its essence. What counts for him is not only the image - just one moment in the photographic process - but also the chemical activity of the materials, which is never entirely stable or complete, and the delimitation of the results via cropping and framing. Marginal and exceptionally voyeuristic, in his methods Tichý could be described as an “art brut photographer” yet he is also marked by classical influences. Though his images are produced with poor-quality equipment and carelessly shot, they offer an idiosyncratic and almost hallucinatory vision of a fantastical, eroticised reality. With his endless return to the same subject and the volume and regularity of his production, Tichý’s work draws many parallels to certain practices of conceptual art during the same period. – Art, Black and White...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-6-88 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-6-88 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 17 x 10,3 cm (6 3/4 x 4 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practic...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 10-1-54 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 10-1-54 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 23,4 x 14,5 cm (9 1/4 x 5 3/4 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practically reinventing photography from scratch, reconstitutes pictorialism along with it, and not as a distortion of the medium but as something like its essence. What counts for him is not only the image - just one moment in the photographic process - but also the chemical activity of the materials, which is never entirely stable or complete, and the delimitation of the results via cropping and framing. Marginal and exceptionally voyeuristic, in his methods Tichý could be described as an “art brut photographer” yet he is also marked by classical influences. Though his images are produced with poor-quality equipment and carelessly shot, they offer an idiosyncratic and almost hallucinatory vision of a fantastical, eroticised reality. With his endless return to the same subject and the volume and regularity of his production, Tichý’s work draws many parallels to certain practices of conceptual art during the same period. – Art, Black and White...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-8-73 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-8-73 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 29,3 x 19,7 cm (11 1/2 x 7 3/4 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practically reinventing photography from scratch, reconstitutes pictorialism along with it, and not as a distortion of the medium but as something like its essence. What counts for him is not only the image - just one moment in the photographic process - but also the chemical activity of the materials, which is never entirely stable or complete, and the delimitation of the results via cropping and framing. Marginal and exceptionally voyeuristic, in his methods Tichý could be described as an “art brut photographer” yet he is also marked by classical influences. Though his images are produced with poor-quality equipment and carelessly shot, they offer an idiosyncratic and almost hallucinatory vision of a fantastical, eroticised reality. With his endless return to the same subject and the volume and regularity of his production, Tichý’s work draws many parallels to certain practices of conceptual art during the same period. – Art, Black and White...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 10-1-96 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 10-1-96 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 17,9 x 11,2 cm (7 x 4 3/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, prac...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 3-8-431 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 3-8-431 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 15 x 9,8 cm (5 7/8 x 3 7/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, pra...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 11-1-120 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 11-1-120 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 17,9 x 13 cm (7 x 5 1/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, pract...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-11-31 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-11-31 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 18 x 13 cm (7 1/8 x 5 1/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, prac...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 10-1-167 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 10-1-167 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 17,7 x 17,8 cm (7 x 7 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practically reinventing photography from scratch, reconstitutes pictorialism along with it, and not as a distortion of the medium but as something like its essence. What counts for him is not only the image - just one moment in the photographic process - but also the chemical activity of the materials, which is never entirely stable or complete, and the delimitation of the results via cropping and framing. Marginal and exceptionally voyeuristic, in his methods Tichý could be described as an “art brut photographer” yet he is also marked by classical influences. Though his images are produced with poor-quality equipment and carelessly shot, they offer an idiosyncratic and almost hallucinatory vision of a fantastical, eroticised reality. With his endless return to the same subject and the volume and regularity of his production, Tichý’s work draws many parallels to certain practices of conceptual art during the same period. – Art, Black and White...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 3-8-236 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 3-8-236 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 16,8 x 11,8 cm (6 5/8 x 4 5/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practically reinventing photography from scratch, reconstitutes pictorialism along with it, and not as a distortion of the medium but as something like its essence. What counts for him is not only the image - just one moment in the photographic process - but also the chemical activity of the materials, which is never entirely stable or complete, and the delimitation of the results via cropping and framing. Marginal and exceptionally voyeuristic, in his methods Tichý could be described as an “art brut photographer” yet he is also marked by classical influences. Though his images are produced with poor-quality equipment and carelessly shot, they offer an idiosyncratic and almost hallucinatory vision of a fantastical, eroticised reality. With his endless return to the same subject and the volume and regularity of his production, Tichý’s work draws many parallels to certain practices of conceptual art during the same period. – Art, Black and White...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-3-74 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-3-74 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 29,7 x 22,5 cm (11 3/4 x 8 7/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practically reinventing photography from scratch, reconstitutes pictorialism along with it, and not as a distortion of the medium but as something like its essence. What counts for him is not only the image - just one moment in the photographic process - but also the chemical activity of the materials, which is never entirely stable or complete, and the delimitation of the results via cropping and framing. Marginal and exceptionally voyeuristic, in his methods Tichý could be described as an “art brut photographer” yet he is also marked by classical influences. Though his images are produced with poor-quality equipment and carelessly shot, they offer an idiosyncratic and almost hallucinatory vision of a fantastical, eroticised reality. With his endless return to the same subject and the volume and regularity of his production, Tichý’s work draws many parallels to certain practices of conceptual art during the same period. – Art, Black and White...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 6-9-23 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 6-9-23 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 23 x 16,5 cm (9 x 6 1/2 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practic...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-5-64 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-5-64 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 18 x 11,7 cm (7 1/8 x 4 5/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, pra...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 3-8-437 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 3-8-437 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 11,8 x 20,4 cm (4 5/8 x 8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, prac...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 4-089 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 4-089 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 20,6 x 12,3 cm (8 1/8 x 4 7/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, pr...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-10-51 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-10-51 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 16 x 8,4 cm (6 1/4 x 3 1/4 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, pra...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, MT Inv. No. 11-1-170 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No. 11-1-170 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 19,2 x 11,6 cm (7 1/2 x 4 5/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý...
Category

Late 20th Century Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

`Untitled 16`-Shadow Within-wolf nature b/w animal
Located in Oslo, NO
`Shadow Within` Norway/USA 2010-2013 70 cm x 110 cm. (28 in. x 43 in.) Edition 6 + 2 a.p. 100 cm x 150 cm. Edition 3 + 1 a.p. Archival ink cotton paper (archival pigment print)...
Category

2010s Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Orthochromatic Positive - Black & White Photography of a Typewriter
Located in Cambridge, GB
Samuel Field's still life of an Olivetti Typewriter, is given depth in the orthochromatic process he has used. Isolated in monochrome you appreciate the details of this vintage utili...
Category

1980s Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Black and White, C Print, Silver Gelatin

The Swan, With Leda (Limited Edition of 25)
Located in New York, NY
This 2009 photograph by legend photographer, John Stoddart depicts “The Swan with Leda.” It was inspired from the mythology of the Greek story of Leda and the Swan, when the God Zeus...
Category

Early 2000s Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Orthochromatic Negative - Black & White Photography of a Typewriter
Located in Cambridge, GB
Samuel Field's still life of an Olivetti Typewriter, is given depth in the orthochromatic process he has used. Isolated in monochrome you appreciat...
Category

1980s Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Black and White, C Print, Silver Gelatin

Reel to Reel, Stretham - Black and white conceptual photography
Located in Cambridge, GB
Photographed in the British Recording Studio that in the 1980's recorded music by Julian Cope of the Teardrop Explodes and the Stranglers. It was the he...
Category

1990s Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Black and White, C Print, Silver Gelatin

The Swan, With Leda (Limited Edition of 25) - 30x40 In Fine Art Print
Located in New York, NY
This 2009 photograph by legend photographer, John Stoddart depicts “The Swan with Leda.” It was inspired from the mythology of the Greek story of Leda and the Swan, when the God Zeus...
Category

Early 2000s Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Orthochromatic Negative (Antique Olivetti Typewriter)
Located in Cambridge, GB
This bold graphic piece fantastically captures the iconic Italian Olivetti Typewriter. This artwork is a limited edition of 25, lustre photographi...
Category

1980s Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

C Print, Silver Gelatin, Photographic Paper, Black and White

A Nation of Shopkeepers - Black and white, portrait photography
Located in Cambridge, GB
This series of portraits were shot by Richard Heeps whilst he was studying Photography in Northwich. They beautifully capture a time of life. Here they have been compiled together fo...
Category

1980s Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Black and White, C Print, Silver Gelatin

Reel to Reel, Stretham
Located in Cambridge, GB
Photographed in the British Recording Studio that in the 1980's recorded music by Julian Cope of the Teardrop Explodes and the Stranglers. It was the he...
Category

1990s Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Black and White, C Print, Silver Gelatin

Beuys' Exhibition - Original Vintage Photo by Ruby Durini - 1084 ca.
Located in Roma, IT
Beuys' Exhibition is an original b/w photograph representing the indoor of the Marino Gallery (in Mignanelli Square, Rome) where Joseph Beuys' exhibition was held in the Eighty's. Th...
Category

1940s Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper

7000 Oak Trees - Original Vintage Photo by Buby Durini - 1984 ca.
Located in Roma, IT
7000 Querce (7000 Oaks) is an original b/w photograph representing the indoor of the Marino Gallery (in Mignanelli Square, Rome) where Joseph Beuys' exhibition was held in the Eighty...
Category

1980s Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper

Side Views - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Side Views - William Wegman (Colour Photography) Signed and inscribed with title Unique black and white Polaroid print, printed 1998 24 x 20 inches The dogs, bewigged and bedecked w...
Category

1990s Conceptual Black and White Photography

Materials

Polaroid

Conceptual black and white photography for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Conceptual black and white photography 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. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Savannah Spirit, Miroslav Tichy, Jennifer Greenburg, and Samuel Field. Frequently made by artists working with Archival Pigment Print, and Pigment Print and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Conceptual black and white photography, so small editions measuring 3.31 inches across are also available. Prices for black and white photography 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 $278 and tops out at $46,412, while the average work sells for $3,000.

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