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Realist Photography

REALIST STYLE

Realist art attempts to portray its subject matter without artifice. Similar to naturalism, authentic realist paintings and prints see an integration of true-to-life colors, meticulous detail and linear perspectives for accurate portrayals of the world. 

Work that involves illusionistic techniques of realism dates back to the classical world, such as the deceptive trompe l’oeil used since ancient Greece. Art like this became especially popular in the 17th century when Dutch artists like Evert Collier painted objects that appeared real enough to touch. Realism as an artistic movement, however, usually refers to 19th-century French realist artists such as Honoré Daumier exploring social and political issues in biting lithographic prints, while the likes of Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet painting people — particularly the working class — with all their imperfections, navigating everyday urban life. This was a response to the dominant academic art tradition that favored grand paintings of myth and history. 

By the turn of the 20th century, European artists, such as the Pre-Raphaelites, were experimenting with nearly photographic realism in their work, as seen in the attention to every botanical attribute of the flowers surrounding the drowned Ophelia painted by English artist John Everett Millais.

Although abstraction was the guiding style of 20th-century art, the realism trend in American modern art endured in Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth and other artists’ depictions of the complexities of the human experience. In the late 1960s, Photorealism emerged with artists like Chuck Close and Richard Estes giving their paintings the precision of a frame of film.

Contemporary artists such as Jordan Casteel, LaToya Ruby Frazier and Aliza Nisenbaum are now using the unvarnished realist approach for honest representations of people and their worlds. Alongside traditional mediums, technology such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and immersive installations are helping artists create new sensations of realism in art.

​​Find authentic realist paintings, sculptures, prints and more art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Realist
Sunbathing In Venice, Italy, Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This mid-1950s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features a woman sunbatheing, wearing a novelty straw sun hat with built-in sunglasses, Venice. Th...
Category

1950s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Ship at the Dock - 1960's San Francisco Maritime Black & White Photograph
By Gene Wright
Located in Soquel, CA
A beautiful black and white photograph of the ship "Balclutha" in dock, with Coit Tower in the background by famed San Francisco photographer Gene Wright (American, 20th Century). Im...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper

Black & White Shoreline of British Pebble Beach, Horizontal Seascape, Zen Waves
Located in Barcelona, ES
This is an exclusive limited edition black and white giclée print, on 100% cotton Hahnemühle Photo Rag Fine Art matte paper. This series of black and white photographs captures the ...
Category

2010s Realist Photography

Materials

Emulsion, Rag Paper, Lithograph, Monoprint

Surfing in Biarritz
Located in New York, NY
Author and screenwriter Peter Viertel (1920 - 2007) with his surfboard on the beach at Biarritz, France, 1960. Estate stamped and hand numbered edition of 150 with certificate of au...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Double Dutch #16: Black girls playing jump rope games in Philadelphia urban city
Located in Bryn Mawr, PA
This black and white photograph depicts a Black girls' team in the urban city of Philadelphia practicing the art of Double-Dutch jump rope. This series of images provide a snapshot o...
Category

2010s Realist Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Kings of Hollywood (Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Van Heflin)
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This iconic photograph is finally available again, for the first time in over a year. In this classic black and white photograph, film stars (left to right) Clark Gable (1901 - 1960), Van Heflin (1910 - 1971), Gary Cooper...
Category

1950s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

"Marilyn Monroe, Roll 2, Frame 2"
Located in West Hollywood, CA
Lawrence Schiller "Marilyn Monroe - Roll 2 Frame 2" 1962; Photograph 20 x 24 inches Edition of 75 Black and White Framed
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Photographic Film

Alpine Skiing, Switzerland, Estate Edition, Landscape Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Alpine Skiing, Switzerland, Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph This late 1960s landscape photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features Skiers waiting for the c...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Verbier Vacation, Estate Edition, Swiss Alps Mountain Snow Landscape Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Swiss Alps, 1964: This landscape photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features holiday-makers taking in the sunset on a white snowy mountain top in Verbier, Swit...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Slim Aarons Yacht Holiday (Slim Aarons Estate Edition)
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Tanned bodies on the deck of Dino Pecci Blunt’s yacht in Marbella, Spain 1967. Printed later. A group of bronzed young women captured from the back are seen enjoying the Spanish ho...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Alpine Skiing, Switzerland, Estate Edition, Landscape Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Alpine Skiing, Switzerland, Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph This late 1960s landscape photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features Skiers waiting for the c...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Zermatt Skiing, Estate Edition
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Skiers in Zermatt, Switzerland, March 1968. Slim Aarons Estate Edition, Certificate of Authenticity included Numbered and stamped by the Slim Aarons Estate Collector will receive t...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Sea Drive, Estate Edition, Seascape with Amphicar in Nassau
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Nassau, 1967: In 'Sea Drive,' a genuine Slim Aarons estate edition photograph, film producer Kevin McClory, his wife, Bobo Sigrist, and their family enjoy a leisurely drive in a vibrant red vintage Amphicar across the scenic turquoise Nassau harbour. This idyllic 1967 scene embodies Slim Aarons signature style, mixing casual glamour and vintage cool; the unique midcentury charm of this iconic landscape is completed with a pink parasol. This is an estate stamped and hand numbered edition of 150 with certificate of authenticity from the estate. Slim Aarons Estate Edition Chromogenic Lambda print Modern printing from original transparency Captured 1964, printed later Certificate of Authenticity included Numbered and stamped by the Slim Aarons Estate Collector will receive the next number in the edition Over the course of a career lasting half a century, Slim Aarons (1916-2006) portrayed high society, aristocracy, authors, artists, business icons, the celebrated and their milieu. In doing so, he captured a golden age of wealth, privilege, beauty and leisure that occurred alongside—but quite separate from—the cultural and political backdrop of the second half of the Twentieth Century. The Slim Aarons Estate has released the limited Estate edition as a Lambda print, which is a modern c-type prints. They have chosen Lambda prints for their sharpness, clarity, colour saturation and quality, compared to archival inkjet prints. Lambda printing gives true continuous tone. Photograph is unframed Slide show includes a close-up of the Slim Aarons estate's stamp. Collector will get the next number in the edition We are pleased to offer the entire archive of the Slim Aarons Estate. This is a genuine Slim Aarons Estate photograph, estate stamped and hand numbered edition of 150 with certificate of authenticity from the estate. Complimentary dealer shipping to your framer, worldwide. Kevin O'Donovan McClory (8 June 1924[1] – 20 November 2006) was an Irish screenwriter, film producer, and film director. McClory was best known for producing the James Bond film Thunderball, popular in the 60s and 70s. Internal: The location for Slim Aarons midcentury photograph, Sea Drive, is Vintage Nassau, which fits curated collections for Vintage Yachting, Vintage Boating, modern graphic, midcentury modern, Vintage Slim Aarons, Vintage Sport Photography...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Nice Pool, Villa Artemis, Palm Beach, Estate Edition
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Step into the world of casual elegance and midcentury glamour with Slim Aarons' evocative photograph, "Nice Pool" This image offers a mesmerizing glimpse into the opulent life of Ame...
Category

1950s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Skiing Princess, Austria, Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Skiing Princess Slim Aarons Estate Edition Numbered and stamped by the Slim Aarons Estate. Certificate of Authenticity included. C-type print on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, Crisp de...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Il Pellicano Pool, Estate Edition, Seascape Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This midcentury midcentury seascape photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features guests walking up steps at the Hotel Il Pellicano at Porto Ercole, Tuscany, I...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Verbier Vacation, Estate Edition, Swiss Alps Mountain Snow Landscape Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Swiss Alps, 1964: This landscape photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features holiday-makers taking in the sunset on a white snowy mountain top in Verbier, Swit...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Sunbathing In Venice, Italy, Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This mid-1950s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features a woman sunbatheing, wearing a novelty straw sun hat with built-in sunglasses, Venice. Th...
Category

1950s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Top People's Eatery, San Francisco, Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This mid-1970s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features Journalist Lucius Beebe beside a gold place setting in the glass roofed Garden Court of the...
Category

1970s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Sports Car Couple, Estate Edition
Located in Los Angeles, CA
1955: John Bryant with his AC sports car in Kinnerton Place, London SW1, Printed Later. His passenger is Margaret McAulay. 40 x 40 inches $3950 30 x 30 ...
Category

1950s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Top People's Eatery, San Francisco, Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This mid-1970s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features Journalist Lucius Beebe beside a gold place setting in the glass roofed Garden Court of the...
Category

1970s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Waterskiing Star: Kirk Douglas, Hôtel du Cap Eden-Roc, Estate Edition Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
American film star Kirk Douglas water-skiing in the sunshine at the Eden Roc annex to the Hotel du Cap d'Antibes on the French Riviera, August 1969. Aa...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Top People's Eatery, San Francisco, Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This mid-1970s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features Journalist Lucius Beebe beside a gold place setting in the glass roofed Garden Court of the...
Category

1970s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Slim Aarons 'Lido Life, Venice'
Located in New York, NY
Lido Life, Venice 1957 C print Estate stamped and hand numbered edition of 150 with certificate of authenticity from the estate. A waiter serves fruit to...
Category

1950s Realist Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled (2917): still life photograph w/ vases, cast hands & feet, and shadows
Located in Bryn Mawr, PA
This is an archival pigment print depicting an abstracted still life printed on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308 gsm by artist Paul Cava. It is from the artist's "Still Life" series, which i...
Category

2010s Realist Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Inkjet, Archival Pigment

Catch Up By the Pool Estate Edition, Modernist Architecture, Palm Springs
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Palm Springs, 1970: This coveted photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features midcentury socialites in front of the turquoise swimming pool of the iconic Kaufma...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Esther Williams, Florida, Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This early 1950s figurative photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features Esther Williams, American aquatic actress and former swimming champion, relaxing in a F...
Category

1950s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

SS Queen Of Bermuda, Bermuda, Estate Edition, Maritime Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This late 1950s maritime photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features the British ocean liner 'SS Queen of Bermuda' in Hamilton Harbour, Bermuda. This is an es...
Category

1950s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Ross Ice Shelf, Near 'Willy' Field, Antarctica
Located in San Francisco, CA
Artist: Stuart Klipper (American, 1941-) Title: Ross Ice Shelf, Near ‘Willy’ Field Year: 1989 Medium: C Print (Chromogenic print) Size: 12 x 38 inches image, 16 x 44 inches sheet, 18 x 45 inches matted. Unframed Signature: Signed, titled, dated, artist’s stamp on reverse Condition: Very good This photograph depicts the Ross Ice Shelf near ‘Willy Field.’. It is a chromogenic print, also called a C-print on Kodak paper. Klipper traveled to Antarctica in 1989 under the aegis of the National Science Foundation. Some of his photographs from this trip were later included in a New York MoMA exhibit titled “Projects 26 – Stuart Klipper On Antarctica 1989.” The three-foot-wide color panoramas in this exhibition were selected from the series On Antarctica, which comprised more than 1,000 pictures made in 1989. In the exhibition brochure, curator Peter Galassi writes that the artist’s panoramas present “a landscape that is ravishing in its barren beauty, in its inhospitable grandeur, and in the delicacy of its ever-changing hues. The photographs seem to fuse the epic swoon of romanticism with the impersonal rigor of science.” The photograph is in very good condition. The mat is in very good condition. Unframed. Stuart Klipper was born in the Bronx in 1941. He then lived in Stockholm, Sweden, moved to Minneapolis in 1970 and currently resides there. He has made six visits to Antarctica to photograph, and has also worked in Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, Alaska and Lapland (in the area irradiated by the Chernobyl disaster). Other major forays have taken him across Northern Australia; the deserts of Israel and Sinai; the tropical rain forests of Costa Rica, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego; and Sri Lanka and Pakistan. He has logged many thousands of miles at sea, photographing on all of the Earth's oceans... and seas. For over 30 years, he has made photographs in all 50 states, distilling and crystallizing the defining characteristics of American regions. Other undertakings include extensively photographing the First World War cemeteries and memorials of the Western Front, major physics and astronomy research installations throughout the U.S. and the Anasazi ruins of the Southwest. His photographs have been exhibited in, and collected by, major museums in the U.S. and overseas; foremost, the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Walker Art Center, The Jewish Museum, the Israel Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Kunsthalle Bonn and the Moderna Museet. He has been the recipient of several major grants, including two each from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Bush Foundation, and three each from the McKnight Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board. He is a recipient of the U.S. Navy's Antarctic Service Medal. He was also visiting professor, Art Department, Colorado College, 1978 to 2008. Solo exhibitions • Disparate Geographies, Schmidt Dean Gallery in Philadelphia, 1998. • Sixteen polar photographs, Arktis -Antarktis, the Kunsthalle des Deutschesrepublic, Bonn, Germany. 1998 • Cardinal Points, at the University of Iowa Museum of Art. (Photographs from polar regions: Antarctica and Greenland, the tropical rain forests, the desert regions of Israel and the Sinai, the agricultural Great Plains)-- an exhibition catalogue was published. 1998 • At Sea Near the Poles, at the Spencer Gallery, Wickford, R.I. 1999 • Antarctica 99/00, Yancey Richardson Gallery, NYC, 2000 • Selected Antarctic Work, Berler Gallery, Washington D.C., 2001 (Also shown in Denver and Christchurch, N.Z. • Selected American photographs, The Center for American Places, Harrisonburg, Va., 2001 • Photographs from the Arctic and Antarctica, Smith-Dean Gallery, Phila., PA, 2001 • Wyoming, Univ. of Wyoming Museum Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2001/02 • In the Australian Outback, Gallery 360, Minneapolis, 2002 • The United States, Candace Perich Gallery, Katonah, NY, 2002 • Rock art, bush fire, termite mounds and other aspects of the outback of the Top End of Australia, Gallery 360, Mpls.,2002 • Portraits about Pakistan, 1987, Icebox Gallery, Mpls., 2002 • Antarctic 1: Views Along Antarctica’s First Highway, Center for Land Use Interpretation, Los Angeles, 2002 • The Louisiana Purchase, Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis & Olson-Larsen Gallery, Des Moines, 2003 • Selected photographs, Medtronics Corp. corporate headquarters, Minneapolis, 2006 • Antarctica, Electrolift Artworks, Minneapolis, Minn. 2006 (+ other venues) • 20 Years of photographing Louisiana, The Ogden Museum, New Orleans, 2008 • Antarctic Photographs, City Museum of Charleston, S.C., 2009 • Local Places – Remote Terrains, Olson Larsen Gallery, Des Moines, Iowa, 2009 • The Dead Sea Region, Israel, The Basilica of St. Mary, Minneapolis, 2010 Group exhibitions • Photography of New York City, Minneapolis Institute of Art. 1998 • Sea Change, The Center for Creative Photography, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson. (An eponymous book was published in conjunction with the exhibition and is in national distribution), 1998/99 • American farms and farming, Candace Perish Gallery, Katonah, NY. (Traveled to Washington D. C.), 1998/99 • Views from the Edge of the World, Marlborough Gallery, NYC. 1999 • Claiming Title: Australian Aboriginal Artists and the Land, St, Olaf & Carleton Colleges, Northfield, Minn., 1999 • The Infinite and the Intimate; Waterscapes of Stuart Klipper and Frank Gohlke, Dorsky Gallery, N.Y.C. 1999 • An Eclectic Focus: Photographs from the Vernon Collection ( + catalogue), Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1999 • Aqua, Gallerie Thierry Marlat, Paris, France 1999 • Restructuring the Prairie, Grinnell College, 1999 • The Mural as Muse, Deutsches Bank Gallery, NYC, 2000 • earth sky, Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, GA, 2000 • Western Panoramas, Huntington Museum, Sta. Barbara, CA, 2001 • I Love New York (W. T. C benefit), NYC, 2001 • Melodrama, inaugural show, ARTIUM, Vitoria, Spain, 2002 • Contemporary Desert Photography...
Category

1980s Realist Photography

Materials

C Print

Double Dutch #3: Black girls playing jump rope games in Philadelphia urban city
Located in Bryn Mawr, PA
This black and white photograph depicts a Black girls' team in the urban city of Philadelphia practicing the art of Double-Dutch jump rope. This series of images provide a snapshot o...
Category

1980s Realist Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

"Nude I&II" - limited edition finest quality - color photograph - set of two
Located in Winterswijk, NL
Kseniia Kokovashina - "Nude I&II" set of two. Beautiful limited edition art photography. Printable in colour or black/white. Editions: 20. Tec...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper

Ice Abstraction
Located in Buffalo, NY
Signed and dated on the front of the mount. Limited edition of 35. Number 9 of 35. From the “Twenty Photographs, 1970-1977” Portfolio.
Category

1970s Realist Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

"El Popocatepetl" Early Sepia-Toned Landscape Photograph with Donkey & Mountain
Located in Houston, TX
Early sepia-toned landscape photograph of Popocatepetl, a large mountain peak in central Mexico. The work highlights a donkey staged in the foreground with the mountain standing in t...
Category

Early 20th Century Realist Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Skiers at Verbier, Switzerland, Estate Edition, Landscape Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This late 1960s landscape photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features Skiers relax in deckchairs on the slopes at Verbier in Switzerland. 1964. This is an est...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Zermatt Skiing, Estate Edition, apres-ski in Switzerland
Located in Los Angeles, CA
The apres-ski in Zermatt, Switzerland, March 1968. Complimentary dealer shipping to your framer, worldwide. Undercurrent Projects is pleased to offer this vibrant photograph, print...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Gasthof Post Pool, Estate Edition
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Guests lounging by the indoor swimming pool of the Gasthof Post in Lech, Austria, February 1979. Slim Aarons Gasthof Post Pool Chromogenic Lambda print Printed Later Slim Aarons Est...
Category

1970s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Monocled Miss, Estate Edition (German model Renata Boeck in 1960s New York)
Located in Los Angeles, CA
German fashion model Renata Boeck (wearing a monocle) enjoying breakfast in bed at the Regency Hotel in New York, 1964. She is wearing a black monocle and a fur-lined turquoise robe as she reads the morning paper, propped up against sumptuous yellow pillows. Morning light pours through the sheer curtains...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Dining Al Fresco On Capri, Estate Edition
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Italian artist and actress Domiziana Giordano, Italian author Francesca Sanvitale (1928 - 2011), Dino Trappetti and Umberto Terrelli dining al fresco ...
Category

1980s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Skaal House, Estate Edition (Snowscape in Vintage Stowe, Vermont)
Located in Los Angeles, CA
The glass-fronted triangular Skaal House, lit up at night, in the Stowe Mountain ski resort in Stowe, Vermont, 1962. A pair of skis lean against the wall b...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Big Jay McNeely, 1951 - Bob Willoughby (Portrait Photography)
Located in London, GB
Big Jay McNeely, 1951 - Bob Willoughby (Portrait Photography) Archival pigment print Printed on 20 x 24 inch paper From an edition of 25 Also available in alternative sizes Bob ...
Category

1950s Realist Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Martha Graham & Erick Hawkins at Bennington College
Located in Wilton Manors, FL
Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins at Bennington College, 1940. Archival print on high gloss paper. Unsigned. Print is hinged, not glued down. Image measures 10.5 x 11.5 inches. ...
Category

1940s Realist Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper

Cuban Flag: black & white photo of Havana, Cuba urban city landscape at night
Located in Bryn Mawr, PA
This black & white photograph of the urban night streets of Havana, Cuba featuring the Cuban flag is part of artist Ron Tarver's series, "Havana: A Place Out...
Category

Early 2000s Realist Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Early Black and White Still Life Photograph of an Interior Fireplace Hearth
Located in Houston, TX
Early black and white still life photograph of a fireplace. The piece also documents the various items used to decorate the hearth including woven basketed and earthen pots...
Category

1930s Realist Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Hotel Taormina Pool, Sicily
Located in Los Angeles, CA
The seaside swimming pool at the Hotel Taormina, Sicily, August 1975. Estate stamped and hand numbered edition of 150 with certificate of authenticity from the estate. Chromogenic...
Category

1970s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Motorboat at Hôtel du Cap Eden-Roc, Estate Edition Photograph, Antibes, Waterski
Located in Los Angeles, CA
A motorboat, used to tow waterskiiers, moored at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes on the French Riviera, August 1969. Aarons' iconic photograph depicts the legendary hotel made f...
Category

1960s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

“Pico Il Orizada” Black and White Mountain Landscape Photograph of Mexico
Located in Houston, TX
Early black and white photograph of Pico Il Orizada, the highest mountain in Mexico. The work features multiple figures in the foreground carrying good on the backs of donkeys as the...
Category

Early 20th Century Realist Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Peggy Guggenheim
Located in Los Angeles, CA
September 1978: Peggy Guggenheim (1898 - 1979) in the Palazzo Venier Dei Leoni, Venice. The palace houses her private art collection, including Picass...
Category

1970s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Subway 30, NYC 1980s, New York City, Kids, Photograph, Subway, Limited Edition
Located in Riverdale, NY
John Conn New York City Subway photographs. These limited edition fine art photographs were originally taken between 1975 and 1982. Each black and white photograph is signed and numbered. Edition of 15. 20x30 image printed on 24x36 archival paper. This is framed in a black frame to 28x38. In this series, Conn captured the graffiti and one of the most crime ridden periods in New York. According to one source “In the 1980s, over 250 felonies were committed every week in the system, making the New York subway the most dangerous mass transit system in the world.” One image captures an Irish...
Category

1970s Realist Photography

Materials

Ink, Archival Paper

Principe Dom Pedro, Brazil, Slim Aarons Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This late 1980s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, Principe Dom Pedro De Orleans E Braganca, grandson of Brazilian emperor Pedro II. He is pictured at...
Category

1980s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

A Pair of origin Photographs Sean Scully Pueblo Museum COA Rare Important Mexico
Located in Buffalo, NY
An original C-Print from Sean Scully's Pueblo Dzibalchen series (A Suite of 20) created in 2001. This work comes in a fantastic natural wood archival frame presentation. This series was shot by Scully in Campeche, Mexico. Photograph size: 20 x 24 in. Framed Size: 27.5 x 33.5 Painter, photographer, watercolorist, and printmaker Sean Scully roams the world with his camera, capturing its surfaces in places as far-flung as Mexico and the Aran Islands...
Category

Early 2000s Realist Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print

Sailor's Light Seascape - Black & White Landscape Photograph
Located in Soquel, CA
Sailor's Light Seascape - Black & White Landscape Photograph Gorgeous black and white textured screen to negative by California landscape photographer Robert Tracy (American, 1926-2...
Category

1970s Realist Photography

Materials

Photographic Film, Silver Gelatin

Pebble Beach, Slim Aarons Estate Edition
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Riders from the Pebble Beach Equestrian Center wend their way through the Californian sand dunes and pampas grass, November 1976. Slim Aarons Pebble Beach, Slim Aarons Estate Editio...
Category

1970s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Poolside Pairs, Estate Edition, Modernist Architecture, Palm Springs Landscape
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Palm Springs, 1970: This coveted photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features two women in stylish midcentury clothing in front of the turquoise swimming pool o...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

"Dry Season" Zebra Herd at Watering Hole Wildlife Photograph Edition 330/950
Located in Houston, TX
Color wildlife photograph from 1991 by photojournalist Thomas Mangelsen. The work features a herd of zebras gathered around a watering hole. Signed, dated, and editioned 33/950 along lower from margin. Currently hung a complementary black frame with a cream matting. Dimensions Without Frame: H 24.5 in. x W 35 in. Artist Biography: A Nebraska native, Mangelsen’s love of nature, his life outdoors and business success were heavily influenced by his father. An avid sportsman, Harold Mangelsen took his sons to favorite blinds along the Platte River in Nebraska to observe the great flocks of ducks, geese and cranes that migrate through the valley. From these adventures, Mangelsen learned important lessons for photographing in the field, most notably patience and understanding animal behavior. In 1965, Mangelsen began studying business at the University of Nebraska. In 1967, Tom transferred to Doane College in Crete, Nebraska, where he changed his major and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology. Tom continued postgraduate study in zoology and wildlife biology at the University of Nebraska and Colorado State University. In 1970 Mangelsen moved to Nederland, Colorado. He spent two years living in the Rocky Mountains in an old mining shack without electricity or running water with his English setter, black lab and raccoon. Tom continued to work on his photography and studied arctic alpine ecology at the University of Colorado’s Mountain Research Station near Nederland. There he met Bert Kempers, a CU film producer, who later hired Tom as cinematographer and film editor for his company Westwind Productions, making educational and nature documentaries. Tom longed to make a documentary about the Platte River and its great wildlife resource. He returned to the Platte each spring to film the great crane migration. These experiences led to Tom traveling to the cranes’ nesting grounds in Alaska and their wintering areas in Texas. National Geographic television wanted to produce a documentary, which would chronicle the plight of the endangered whooping crane...
Category

1990s Realist Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper

Slim Aarons 'Hotel Taormina Pool'
Located in New York, NY
The seaside swimming pool at the Hotel Taormina, Sicily, August 1975. Estate stamped and hand numbered edition of 150 with certificate of authenticity from the estate. Slim Aaro...
Category

1970s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Phil Richards' Pool, Estate Edition
Located in Los Angeles, CA
A poolside party at Phil Richards' home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, May 1970. Slim Aarons Estate Edition, Certificate of Authenticity included Numbered and stamped by the Slim Aar...
Category

1970s Realist Photography

Materials

Lambda

Thistles and Pines (Hand-printed cyanotype, 12 x 16 inches)
Located in Oakland, CA
Scotch thistles bloom in the foreground while from the fog emerge towering Monterey pines behind them. These are the woods across the bay from San Francisco in early summer when this...
Category

2010s Realist Photography

Materials

Photogram

Sunflowers
Located in San Francisco, CA
Artist: Walter Nelson – American (1942- ) Title: Sunflowers. From the Fleur portfolio Year: 1981 Medium: Dye transfer color photograph Sight size: 14.25 ...
Category

1980s Realist Photography

Materials

Dye Transfer

Realist photography for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Realist 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, red, pink and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Slim Aarons, Pico Garcez, Kind of Cyan, and Massimo Listri. Frequently made by artists working with Digital Print, and Lambda 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 Realist photography, so small editions measuring 3.94 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 $105 and tops out at $75,000, while the average work sells for $3,000.

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