Conceptual 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.
to
14
155
127
62
137
432
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
119
793
1
1
1
10
24
53
46,765
17,277
3,014
2,822
1,322
782
568
279
212
125
116
90
44
26
467
369
72
351
194
166
155
126
112
98
95
82
75
74
70
69
64
50
43
40
38
32
32
358
303
299
298
271
274
77
58
49
23
64
154
591
254
Style: Conceptual
Andy & Rob
Located in New York, NY
Mixed Media on wood featuring the famed Andy Warhol. Photographed by Joester. Images on sides as well. Not framed.
About the Artist:
Steve Joester is a British-born Rock & ...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Canvas, Photographic Film, Mixed Media
The End of The Affair #1 - Ltd Ed
Located in New York, NY
Vintage 50's Barbie with vintage accessories and set. Narrative depicts title - the end of the affair. Metallic print produced on metal. Black and white Photography. Ltd Ed.
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Metal
Surreal to Conceptual Distortion Color Walls With Montreal Museum Napoleon
Located in New York, NY
Barbara Rosenthal’s Conceptual Photography is a concrete manifestation of complex inner stresses from external realities of all kinds: physical, familial, political, religious, time, space and relentless travel. Rosenthal begins by shooting surreal photographs in a kind of trance-state. She believes that the resultant images, and the Conceptual Distortions created from them, reveal elements of both her particular personality and psychological states, and reach the same in the viewers’ own. In artist’s own words: “I gave myself a camera and promised not to interfere.”
During this decade of relentless exhibition and travel, Rosenthal has been shooting several hundred rolls of color and BW 35mm film with analog Olympus OM...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Surreal to Conceptual Distortion Color Walls With Post-hospital Bathtub Photo
Located in New York, NY
Barbara Rosenthal’s Conceptual Photography is a concrete manifestation of complex inner stresses from external realities of all kinds: physical, familial, political, religious, time, space and relentless travel. Rosenthal begins by shooting surreal photographs in a kind of trance-state. She believes that the resultant images, and the Conceptual Distortions created from them, reveal elements of both her particular personality and psychological states, and reach the same in the viewers’ own. In artist’s own words: “I gave myself a camera and promised not to interfere.”
During this decade of relentless exhibition and travel, Rosenthal has been shooting several hundred rolls of color and BW 35mm film with analog Olympus OM...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Manhattan Skyscraper Abstract Multiple Exposure, Kali, Abstract Photography
Located in Miami, FL
This trailblazing in-camera multiple exposures of New York buildings with the moon was done in 1972. It's not just an image that pushes the boundaries of visual imagery but it is a t...
Category
1970s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment
Business Man Rises Above the Manhattan Skyline - Staged Photography
By Robert Funk
Located in Miami, FL
A two-inch plastic toy figure of a suited man is placed on top of an extended firetruck ladder. The toy truck and man are placed on the roof of a Brooklyn Heights building and positioned directly in front of the lower Manhattan skyline. At the time, it was the very center of of world commerce. The two-inch toy man raises above the tallest and most important buildings , including the recently finished World Trade Center Twin Towers. Clearly, this man is above it all and this photo is more than child's play.
The work is signed, numbered 2/15, dated and titled lr. printed later, unframed, Printed on Hahnemühle Fine Art paper
Robert Funk is a pioneer of toy, doll, miniature, plastic thingies and staged photography. He also photographs his own paintings. Most of his work is done on location. He does not use photoshop to strip in images. He doesn’t take photographs he creates photographs and has works dating from 1973. He was widely published in the 1970's and early 1980's. As an undergrad in painting, he studied with first-generation abstract expressionist Robert Richenburg...
Category
1970s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Paper, Archival Ink, Archival Pigment
FORT DE SOTO WAVES #36, St Petersburg, Florida 2013
Located in Santa Monica, CA
This large format, color-photograph belongs to Jay Mark Johnson's wave series - the images from which depict the rhythmic cycling and recycling of oceanfront waves as recorded on remote coastlines around the world--in Hawaii, Florida, California, the Caribbean, Great Britain, Australia and South Africa.
These artworks belong to the artist’s ongoing inquiry into the possibilities for timeline photography. For this decades-long project Johnson employs an unconventional camera system to produce seamless delineated renderings of familiar events as they occur over time. The results present an altered view of our surroundings.
Artworks from Johnson’s timeline series have been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. They can be found in the permanent collections of the Bundestag (German Parliament) in Berlin, the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie at Karlsruhe, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, the Phoenix Art Museum, the Langen Foundation, Hombroich, Germany, the Peter Klein...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Photography
Materials
Aluminum
Three Empire State Buildings, 1976
By Robert Funk
Located in Miami, FL
Late light strikes two metal souvenirs placed on a ledge and set against the midtown skyline. Shot with a 20mm lens with maximum depth of field to rende...
Category
Conceptual Photography
Materials
Photographic Paper
Terry O'Neill - Roger Moore as James Bond, Photography 1970, Printed After
Located in Greenwich, CT
British actor Roger Moore poses with a gun as James Bond. Publicity shot from 1973, for his first Bond movie: Live and Let Die. It's the only time Bond used ...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Totem of Unmeasurable Memory, 1995 Assemblage of 7 silver gelatin prints
By Lewis Koch
Located in Surfside, FL
Totem of Unmeasurable Memory, 1995 Assemblage of 7 vintage silver gelatin prints
Lewis Koch lives in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. After completing undergradu...
Category
1990s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Constructivism - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Signed and numbered on label affixed to reverse of mount
Pigment print
44 x 57 1/3 inches
Edition of 4
The dogs, bewigged and bedecked with outfits and props, demonstrate a wide ran...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Residential Beauty Series No.5 Illinois
By David Pugh
Located in Kansas City, MO
Artist : David K. Pugh
Title : Residential Beauty Series No.5 Illinois
Materials : Archival Pigment Print
Date : 2019
David has been a photographer for 10 years. After having photo...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment
Residential Beauty Series No.3 Grimes, Iowa
By David Pugh
Located in Kansas City, MO
Artist : David K. Pugh
Title : Residential Beauty Series No.3 Grimes, Iowa
Materials : Archival Pigment Print
Date : 2019
David has been a photographer for 10 years. After having p...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment
Pattern Series No.6
By David Pugh
Located in Kansas City, MO
Artist : David K. Pugh
Title : Pattern Series No.6
Materials : Archival Pigment Print
Date : 2019
David has been a photographer for 10 years. After having photographed a magnolia t...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment
Pattern Series No.4
By David Pugh
Located in Kansas City, MO
Artist : David K. Pugh
Title : Pattern Series No.4
Materials : Archival Pigment Print
Date : 2019
David has been a photographer for 10 years. After having photographed a magnolia t...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment
Residential Beauty Series No.8 Kansas City, MO
By David Pugh
Located in Kansas City, MO
Artist : David K. Pugh
Title : Residential Beauty Series No.8 Kansas City, MO
Materials : Archival Pigment Print
Date : 2019
David has been a photographer for 10 years. After havin...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment
Do Not Go Quietly Into the Night (B&W)
By Gary Hodson
Located in Kansas City, MO
Artist : Gary Hodson
Title : Do Not Go Quietly Into the Night (B&W)
Materials : Archival Pigment Print
Date : 2018
Dimensions : 13 x 19 in.
Gary Hodson’s subject matter remains di...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Ink, Photographic Paper, Digital, Archival Pigment
Suffocating
Located in Kansas City, MO
Artist: Rachel Lauren
Title: Suffocating
Date: 2019
Medium: Inkjet print
Dimensions: 14 x 11 in.
Photographer Rachel Lauren invites viewers to become more aware of the way natural beauty has been contorted, packed and sold as a cold, manufactured, cloned and empty product. Are women inherently beautiful, or do they require modifications? Are you seeing your uniquely created reflection through a distorted lens? By imposing a juxtaposition between real and fake through abstract portraiture, Lauren calls attention to these complex ideals in "Distorted Beauty".
Lauren is currently an MFA candidate at UMKC and based in Colorado. Since the age of two, she has fostered a love for photography and traveling which have both shaped her understanding of the issues she addresses in her work.
Contemporary photography, portrait photography, experimental portraiture, conceptual photography, Steve McCurry, Lisa Kristine...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Photographic Paper, Color, Inkjet
“Untitled” (from Body Series)
By David Pugh
Located in Kansas City, MO
David Pugh
“Untitled” (from Body Series), 2018
Year: 2019
Archival Inkjet Print on Museo Silver Rag
Dimensions: 20 x 15 inches
Unframed
David Pugh’s photographic work tends to pull ...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Paper, Archival Pigment
Pawns - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Pawns - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and numbered on label affixed to reverse of mount
Pigment print
44 x 34 inches
From an edition of 7
The dogs, bewigged and bedeck...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Split Level
Located in London, GB
Signed and numbered on label affixed to reverse of mount
Pigment print
44 x 34 inches
From an edition of 7 + 2 APs
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Breakout - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Breakout - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Unique colour Polaroid print, printed 1995
24 x 20 inches
The dogs, bewigged and bedecked with outfits...
Category
1990s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Presentation - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Presentation - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Unique colour Polaroid print, printed 2004
24 x 20 inches
The dogs, bewigged and bedecked with out...
Category
Early 2000s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Look There - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Look There - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Unique colour Polaroid print, printed 1996
24 x 20 inches
The dogs, bewigged and bedecked with outfi...
Category
1990s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Armed and Matching - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Armed and Matching - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Unique colour Polaroid print, printed 1989
24 x 20 inches
The dogs, bewigged and bedecked wi...
Category
1980s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Leggings - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Leggings - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Two unique colour Polaroid prints, printed 1998
24 x 20 inches each
The dogs, bewigged and bedecked wi...
Category
1990s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Left to Right - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Left to Right - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Three unique colour Polaroid prints, printed 1989
24 x 20 inches each
The dogs, bewigged and bede...
Category
1980s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Dressed from Below - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Dressed from Below - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Two unique colour Polaroid prints, printed 1994
24 x 20 inches each
The dogs, bewigged and b...
Category
1990s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Towelling - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Towelling - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Unique colour Polaroid print, printed 1993
24 x 20 inches
The dogs, bewigged and bedecked with outfit...
Category
1990s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Climber - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Climber - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Unique colour Polaroid print, printed 1991
24 x 20 inches
The dogs, bewigged and bedecked with outfits ...
Category
1990s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
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 Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Posed on Pedestal - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Posed on Pedestal - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Unique colour Polaroid print, printed 1994
24 x 20 inches
The dogs, bewigged and bedecked wit...
Category
1990s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Primary Trio - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Primary Trio - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Unique colour Polaroid print, printed 1991
24 x 20 inches
The dogs, bewigged and bedecked with out...
Category
1990s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Chair Piece - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
Chair Piece - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Unique colour Polaroid print, printed 1991
24 x 20 inches
The dogs, bewigged and bedecked with outf...
Category
1990s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
3 Out of Four - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
3 Out of Four - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Unique colour Polaroid print, printed 1988
24 x 20 inches
The dogs, bewigged and bedecked with ou...
Category
1980s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
My Coo Kie - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Located in London, GB
My Coo Kie - William Wegman (Colour Photography)
Signed and inscribed with title
Unique colour Polaroid print, printed 1991
24 x 20 inches
The dogs, bewigged and bedecked with outfi...
Category
1990s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Theater, or Eye
By Sofia Borges
Located in New York, NY
Sofia Borges
Theater, or Eye, 2014
Pigment print on cotton paper mounted on Sintra
Edition 1 of 5 + 1 AP
Size 1: 47 ¼ x 74 inches (120 x 188 cm)
Size 2: 150 x 235 cm Edition of 3 + 1 AP (⅓ printed in Brazil)
Sofia Borges makes haunting, large-format photographs of archival objects and illustrations such as museum dioramas, taxidermy animals, Cold War-era ephemera, and archaic medical drawings...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
It was finally my day! 2015
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Jennifer Greenburg challenges social norms and the nature of vernacular photographs in her series Revising History. Interjecting herself in mid-century images from the 1940’s – 60’s,...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Two years later, I was drunk enough to sing at the St. Pat's party. 2014
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Jennifer Greenburg challenges social norms and the nature of vernacular photographs in her series Revising History. Interjecting herself in mid-century images from the 1940’s – 60’s,...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Napping with Floyd, 2011
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Jennifer Greenburg challenges social norms and the nature of vernacular photographs in her series Revising History. Interjecting herself in mid-century images from the 1940’s – 60’s,...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Fragile
Located in New Orleans, LA
As a conceptual artist, Joe Zammit-Lucia works with a photographic medium to explore issues within the human-animal relationship. He is one of the world’s leading animal portrait art...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Joseph Beuys & Nam June Paik, Sogetsu Hall Tokyo, Japan
By Paul Garrin
Located in New York, NY
Joseph Beuys & Nam June Paik, Sogetsu Hall Tokyo, Japan, 1982
Vintage silver gelatin print
11 × 14 in
27.9 × 35.6 cm
signed
Category
1980s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
CAPE OF GOOD HOPE #112, South Africa 2014
Located in Santa Monica, CA
This large format, color-photograph belongs to Jay Mark Johnson's wave series - the images from which depict the rhythmic cycling and recycling of oceanfront waves as recorded on remote coastlines around the world--in Hawaii, Florida, California, the Caribbean, Great Britain, Australia and South Africa.
These artworks belong to the artist’s ongoing inquiry into the possibilities for timeline photography. For this decades-long project Johnson employs an unconventional camera system to produce seamless delineated renderings of familiar events as they occur over time. The results present an altered view of our surroundings.
Artworks from Johnson’s timeline series have been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. They can be found in the permanent collections of the Bundestag (German Parliament) in Berlin, the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie at Karlsruhe, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, the Phoenix Art Museum, the Langen Foundation, Hombroich, Germany, the Peter Klein...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Photography
Materials
Aluminum
Conceptual photography for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Conceptual 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. If you’re looking to add photography created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, purple, green, orange and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Reinhard Görner, Jose Sierra, xulong zhang, and Gianfranco Pezzot. Frequently made by artists working with C Print, and Paper 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 photography, so small editions measuring 1 inches across are also available. Prices for 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 $45 and tops out at $46,412, while the average work sells for $3,512.