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Contemporary Abstract Prints

CONTEMPORARY STYLE

Used to refer to a time rather than an aesthetic, Contemporary art generally describes pieces created after 1970 or being made by living artists anywhere in the world. This immediacy means it encompasses art responding to the present moment through diverse subjects, media and themes. Contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, performance, digital art, video and more frequently includes work that is attempting to reshape current ideas about what art can be, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of candy to memorialize a lover he lost to AIDS-related complications to Jenny Holzer’s ongoing “Truisms,” a Conceptual series that sees provocative messages printed on billboards, T-shirts, benches and other public places that exist outside of formal exhibitions and the conventional “white cube” of galleries.

Contemporary art has been pushing the boundaries of creative expression for years. Its disruption of the traditional concepts of art are often aiming to engage viewers in complex questions about identity, society and culture. In the latter part of the 20th century, contemporary movements included Land art, in which artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer create large-scale, site-specific sculptures, installations and other works in soil and bodies of water; Sound art, with artists such as Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz centering art on sonic experiences; and New Media art, in which mass media and digital culture inform the work of artists such as Nam June Paik and Rafaël Rozendaal.

The first decades of the 21st century have seen the growth of Contemporary African art, the revival of figurative painting, the emergence of street art and the rise of NFTs, unique digital artworks that are powered by blockchain technology.

Major Contemporary artists practicing now include Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Kara Walker.

Find a collection of Contemporary prints, photography, paintings, sculptures and other art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Contemporary
Still Life with Pink Poppy (floral, still life, watercolor, flowers)
Located in New York, NY
Watercolor on paper 32 x 25 inches framed
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Les Voiles (The Sails) /// James Coignard Abstract Text Engraving Modern Art
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: James Coignard (French, 1925-2008) Title: "Les Voiles (The Sails)" *Signed by Coignard in pencil lower right Year: 1984 Medium: Original Hand-Embellis...
Category

1980s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Gold Leaf

Seascape XVIII Diptych - large scale abstract monochromatic ocean water surface
Located in San Francisco, CA
Large format abstract photograph diptych of mesmerizing water surface and ephemeral abstract ripple patterns from a series of photographic works capturing the monochromatic oceanic b...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Giclée, Archival Pigment

Untitled (floral, still life, watercolor, bright colors, white space, flowers)
Located in New York, NY
Watercolor on paper
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Figurative Abstract Angel Screen Print with Poem, "Like a Breeze Passing"
Located in Soquel, CA
Ethereal figurative abstract print of two figures merging by Deborah Rumer (American, 20th Century). Titled "Like a breeze passing...", numbered (Ed100), signed, and dated (© Deborah...
Category

1990s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Ink, Screen

Ex Uno Plures Seven - Contemporary Abstract Geological Encaustic Monotype, 2020
Located in Kent, CT
Laura Moriarty's Ex Uno Plures 7 is a contemporary encaustic monotype on Japanese kozo paper. Layers of pigmented beeswax on lightweight paper create an undulating composition sugges...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Encaustic, Archival Paper, Monotype

Praying for World Peace in the Sunlight
Located in Manchester, GB
Yayoi Kusama, Praying for World Peace in the Sunlight, 2016 Vivid inkjet colours on synthetic paper. Stamped by Yayoi Kusama Foundation 59.4 x 74.1 cm Unknown edition size The ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Giclée

Plate No. 346 - Human Figure, Print, Portrait, Landscape, Nature, Flowers
Located in Brighton, GB
Plate No. 346 by Johanna Goodman Giclée print on Archival Matte Paper with Archival Pigment Ink. In 2017 she was awarded the New York State Council for the Arts/New York Foundation...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Giclée

"Spirits Through Time VI, " Framed Limited Edition Giclee Print, 30" x 30"
Located in Westport, CT
This abstract portrait Limited Edition print by Ned Martin blends realistic and abstracted styles. Part of his Spirits Through Time series of female portraits, the woman's face is re...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Digital, Giclée

Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics - by Cy Twombly - 1984
Located in Roma, IT
Untitled, Sarayevo Winter Olympic Games 1984, is an etching with aquatint and lithograph in colors realized by Cy Twombly on the occasion of the Winter Olympics Games 1984 in Sarajev...
Category

1980s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching, Aquatint, Lithograph

Gerhard Richter, Motorboot - Limited Edition Print, Contemporary Art
Located in Hamburg, DE
Gerhard Richter Motorboot, 1965/2022 Medium: Hybrid raster dissolved digital art print on Rives 260 gsm paper Dimensions: 27 3/5 × 27 3/5 in 70 × 70 cm Edition of 500: Not signed, n...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Digital

Seascape I Diptych - abstract photograph of water color cloud horizon
Located in San Francisco, CA
large format abstract photograph of water color clouds and horizon from a series of photographic works capturing the sea blue color palette of the ocean SEASCAPE I Diptych by Frank...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Giclée, Archival Pigment

Julie Curtiss Woman In High Heels Print Contemporary Art
Located in Draper, UT
Title Julie Curtiss Woman In High Heels Small Edition Of Only 10 - 17 X 11 Pristine Condition Year 2019 Classification Limited edition Medium Type Print ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Donald Sultan 'Seven Blues Jan. 24, 2024' - Limited Edition Silkscreen
Located in New York, NY
Donald Sultan's 'Seven Blues Jan. 24, 2024' is a masterful color silkscreen featuring enamel inks, flocking, and tar-like textures, limited to an edition of 30. Donald Sułtan Seven...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Screen

Condo, Pink and Yellow Sweep, Drawing Paintings (after)
Located in Southampton, NY
Four color process print on vélin paper. Paper size: 10.75 x 9.25 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the folio, George Condo, Drawing Paintings, 201...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Archival Pigment

Antoni Tàpies lithograph Derriere Le Miroir (Antoni Tàpies prints)
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Antoni Tàpies Lithograph c. 1968 from Derrière le miroir: Lithograph in colors; 15 x 11 inches. Very good overall vintage condition. Unsigned from an edition of unknown. Fr...
Category

1960s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Damien Hirst - Honesty (from The Virtues series)
Located in London, GB
Damien Hirst, Honesty, 2021 Laminated giclee print on aluminium composite panel 47 1/5 × 37 4/5 in 120 × 96 cm Edition of 728 hand-sgned by the artist on the back published by HENI...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Giclée

ALL THE PEOPLE Signed Lithograph, For My People-Margaret Walker, Rainbow Faces
Located in Union City, NJ
ALL THE PEOPLE is an original hand drawn limited edition lithograph by the highly acclaimed African-American woman artist Elizabeth Catlett, master printmaker and sculptor best known...
Category

1990s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

H12-5 - 132 Beautiful, Very Undescribable, Almost Universal, Altogether Novel
Located in Bristol, GB
Giclée print on poly-cotton artist canvas mounted on birch plywood stretcher Unique variant from an edition of 473 100 x 100 cm (39.4 x 39.4 in) Signed on the front Mint. Sold in...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Canvas, Plywood, Giclée

The Eye and the Beard of God
Located in Brooklyn, NY
The Eye and the Beard of God by Friedensreich Hundertwasser was originally created as a painting in 1962. Hundertwasser, known for his distinct, whimsical style, often combined bold ...
Category

1980s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Screen

Stratosphere I - large format photograph of abstract liquid water cloudscapes
Located in San Francisco, CA
large scale photography of mesmerizing color compositions of liquid cloudscape painting in water, hypnotizing abstract liquidscapes from the bo...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment, Giclée

The Currency 9714. No Way Out
Located in Manchester, GB
Damien Hirst, The Currency 9714. No Way Out, 2016 (With original HENI Frame) Enamel paint, handmade paper, watermark, microdot, hologram, pencil 20 x 30 cm Hand-signed on the rev...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Mixed Media

David Shrigley - Art Will Save the World
Located in London, GB
Artist David Shrigley (British, b. 1968) Title: Art Will Save the World Year: 2019 Medium: 25 colour screenprint with a varnish overlay on Somerset Satin Tub sized 410 gsm paper Shee...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Screen

Scorched Earth
Located in London, GB
Polymer gravure type etching on Velin Arches Blanc 250 gsm. Signed and numbered by the artist Paper size: 24 x 29.5 cm Edition of 100
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching

THERE IS A WOMAN IN EVERY COLOR 1994 Vintage Poster, Black Women, Rainbow Colors
Located in Union City, NJ
Elizabeth Catlett - THERE IS A WOMAN IN EVERY COLOR Rare vintage fine art lithograph poster reproduced after Catlett's original 1975 woodcut print entitled THERE IS A WOMAN IN EVERY...
Category

1990s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Offset

Welcome To Paradise - Large Scale Contemporary Art Photography
Located in Zürich, CH
In a world dominated by digital precision and instant gratification, Pia Clodi stands as a beacon of nostalgia and unpredictability, finding beauty in the fleeting moments captured t...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Carbon Pigment, Polaroid

Home Hole at Shinnecock
Located in Washington, DC
Artist: LeRoy Neiman Title: Home Hole at Shinnecock Medium: Serigraph Year: 1995 Edition: 398/450 Frame Size: 26 1/4" x 35 1/4" Sheet Size: 24 3/4" x 33 3/4" Image Size: 15 3/4" x 25...
Category

1990s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Screen

'S', Hockney's Alphabet, David Hockney and Stephen Spender, Lithograph, 1991
Located in Manchester, GB
David Hockney, 'S' from 'Hockney's Alphabet', 1991 Edition of 250 Free Delivery to UK Customers From the special edition of Hockney's Alphabet, published in 1991, and signed on th...
Category

1990s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Lithograph

Future Garden - Original Print by Leo Guida - 1976
Located in Roma, IT
Future Garden is a screen print realized by Leo Guida in 1976. Hand signed and dated. Edition of 50. Excellent condition. Leo Guida  (1992 - 2017). Sensitive to current issues, a...
Category

1970s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Offset

"an ancient conversation", Abstract, Collaged Monoprints, Ink, Botanical
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This piece titled "an ancient conversation" is an original piece by Cassie Normandy White and is made from fabric monotypes and ink. This piece m...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Ink, Monotype

Wu Zetian [H10-1]
Located in London, GB
Wu Zetian [H10-1], 2022 Laminated Giclée print on aluminium composite, screen printed with glitter.
 100 x 100 cm Edition of 2853 Signed and numbered on the ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Giclée

Damien Hirst Minimalist Woodcut Print, 'Vertical Spots' IV, 2016
Located in New York, NY
The vertical Spots 'Gly-Gly-Ala' by Damien Hirst is a multi-color woodcut in his signature palette formed with series unique colors. This exquisite piece is created in a limited edit...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Woodcut

When You Love Someone!. From the Origin series
Located in Miami Beach, FL
They were created as an investigation into the beginnings of the current human social conditions with a focus on materiality and evolutionary information gathered from Paul Shepards ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Gold, Gold Leaf

Takashi Murakami - Flower Sparkles - Pop Art Japanese Flowers Colours
Located in London, GB
Edition of 300. Murakami signed and numbered in silver marker pen along the lower right edge. Offset lithograph with cold foil stamp and high gloss varnishing on UV paper 60 x 60 cm ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Offset

"said the zinnia", Abstract, Collaged Monoprints, Watercolor, Botanicals
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This piece titled "said the zinnia" is an original piece by Cassie Normandy White and is made from fabric monotypes and ink. This diptych piece m...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Fabric, Ink, Monotype

Julie Mehretu 'Easy Dark'
Located in Brooklyn, NY
The Easy Dark poster for Julie Mehretu’s exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is a remarkable piece that embodies the energy and complexity of Mehretu’s work. Printed in ...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Offset

Julie Mehretu  'Easy Dark'
Julie Mehretu  'Easy Dark'
$360 Sale Price
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Orbiting Masses, Blue and White Abstract Diptych, Monotype Cyanotype on Paper
Located in Barcelona, ES
Orbiting Masses is an exclusive handmade cyanotype diptych that features modern, abstract rocky shapes rendered in deep indigo tones. Each panel captures the raw texture and organic ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Monotype

Contemporary School Blurred Fruit C-Print
Located in Astoria, NY
Contemporary School, Blurred Fruit, Chromogenic Print in Colors on Acrylic panel, sky blue ground with pale central image of fruit, apparently unsigned, unframed. 40" H x 29.75" W. P...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Acrylic Polymer, C Print

Hemisphere I (framed) - large photograph of abstract liquid cloudscapes in water
Located in San Francisco, CA
large scale framed photography of mesmerizing color compositions of liquid cloudscape painting in water, hypnotizing abstract liquidscapes from the body of works titled 'Hemisphere' ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Plexiglass, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Giclée

Eight of Hearts mixed media silkscreen hand applied acrylic, signed unique Frame
Located in New York, NY
Robert Petersen Eight of Hearts, 1989 Mixed media silkscreen with hand applied acrylic on paper with deckled edges Hand signed, numbered 6/21, dated, and inscribed on the front Uniqu...
Category

1980s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Acrylic, Pencil, Graphite, Screen, Mixed Media

Mitchell- Mon Paysage/My Countryside 1967, Vintage
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Reproduction of Joan Mitchell’s Mon Paysage (1967), published by Éditions Maeght. This striking piece captures Mitchell’s bold brushwork and emotional resonance, evoking a landscape ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Offset

The Moth - Original Lithograph by Giuseppe Zigaina - 1973
Located in Roma, IT
The Moth is a wonderful colored lithograph on paper, realized in 1973 by the Italian artist Giuseppe Zigaina, and published by La Nuova Foglio, the publishing house of Macerata. Ha...
Category

1970s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Endless
Located in Palm Springs, CA
Signed and numbered by the artist, edition of 10. From the Colophon page: "This book is dedicated to the mosaic floor of the Basilica of San Marco in Venice. The most beautiful cap...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching

Conquering the Falls - Contemporary Abstract Geology Encaustic Monotype, 2024
Located in Kent, CT
In this contemporary encaustic monotype, layers of pigmented beeswax on lightweight paper create an undulating composition suggesting layers of the earth's crust and geological forma...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Encaustic, Archival Paper, Monotype

Werner Bronkhorst - Tip Of The Iceberg
Located in London, GB
Werner Bronkhorst Sail Away, 2025 Giclée print on 310gsm Smooth Cotton Rag using Epson archival inks Shadow box framed in FSC certified timber with a smooth white finish and 3mm mu...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Archival Ink, Giclée

Tracey Emin, It Didn't Stop I Didn't Stop print, SCARCE when Hand Signed, Framed
Located in New York, NY
Tracey Emin It - didnt stop - I didnt stop, 2019, from the exhibition TRACEY EMIN/EDVARD MUNCH: THE LONELINESS OF THE SOUL (hand signed), 2021 Offset lithograph promotional card (han...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph, Offset

Dawn from an Airplane, Abstract Aerial Diptych, Giclée, Blue Gradient Skyline
Located in Barcelona, ES
Cyd Fontaine (Lausanne, 1992) is a contemporary artist renowned for her captivating use of dreamy atmospheric gradients, which has helped her carve a distinctive niche in the world of digital art. Drawing inspiration from the ethereal beauty of nature, Fontaine's artistic journey has taken her on an imaginative exploration of space, depth, and emotion through the medium of large digital prints. Her signature style is characterized by the use of vast, immersive gradients that seem to stretch infinitely across space. These gradients evoke a sense of enigmatic calmness, inviting viewers to lose themselves in the expanse of her visual landscapes. Her ability to create a feeling of boundless depth and space within her pieces, combined with subtle minimalist compositions, is a testament to her mastery of the digital medium. Fontaine’s pieces resonate with audiences seeking a connection to the sublime, offering a window into a world where colors blend seamlessly and boundaries dissolve. Her work can be found in several private collections throughout Europe and the United States. She currently lives and works between Barcelona and Lausanne. Details: Title: Dawn from an Airplane...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Archival Ink, Photographic Paper, C Print, Digital, Giclée, Archival Pig...

Fantasy, Japanese, limited edition lithograph, black, white, red, signed, titled
Located in Santa Fe, NM
Fantasy, Japanese, limited edition lithograph, black, white, red, signed, titled Shinoda's works have been collected by public galleries and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum and Metropolitan Museum (all in New York City), the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the British Museum in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the Singapore Art Museum, the National Museum of Singapore, the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands, the Albright–Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. New York Times Obituary, March 3, 2021 by Margalit Fox, Alex Traub contributed reporting. Toko Shinoda, one of the foremost Japanese artists of the 20th century, whose work married the ancient serenity of calligraphy with the modernist urgency of Abstract Expressionism, died on Monday at a hospital in Tokyo. She was 107. Her death was announced by her gallerist in the United States. A painter and printmaker, Ms. Shinoda attained international renown at midcentury and remained sought after by major museums and galleries worldwide for more than five decades. Her work has been exhibited at, among other places, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the British Museum; and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. Private collectors include the Japanese imperial family. Writing about a 1998 exhibition of Ms. Shinoda’s work at a London gallery, the British newspaper The Independent called it “elegant, minimal and very, very composed,” adding, “Her roots as a calligrapher are clear, as are her connections with American art of the 1950s, but she is quite obviously a major artist in her own right.” As a painter, Ms. Shinoda worked primarily in sumi ink, a solid form of ink, made from soot pressed into sticks, that has been used in Asia for centuries. Rubbed on a wet stone to release their pigment, the sticks yield a subtle ink that, because it is quickly imbibed by paper, is strikingly ephemeral. The sumi artist must make each brush stroke with all due deliberation, as the nature of the medium precludes the possibility of reworking even a single line. “The color of the ink which is produced by this method is a very delicate one,” Ms. Shinoda told The Business Times of Singapore in 2014. “It is thus necessary to finish one’s work very quickly. So the composition must be determined in my mind before I pick up the brush. Then, as they say, the painting just falls off the brush.” Ms. Shinoda painted almost entirely in gradations of black, with occasional sepias and filmy blues. The ink sticks she used had been made for the great sumi artists of the past, some as long as 500 years ago. Her line — fluid, elegant, impeccably placed — owed much to calligraphy. She had been rigorously trained in that discipline from the time she was a child, but she had begun to push against its confines when she was still very young. Deeply influenced by American Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell, whose work she encountered when she lived in New York in the late 1950s, Ms. Shinoda shunned representation. “If I have a definite idea, why paint it?,” she asked in an interview with United Press International in 1980. “It’s already understood and accepted. A stand of bamboo is more beautiful than a painting could be. Mount Fuji is more striking than any possible imitation.” Spare and quietly powerful, making abundant use of white space, Ms. Shinoda’s paintings are done on traditional Chinese and Japanese papers, or on backgrounds of gold, silver or platinum leaf. Often asymmetrical, they can overlay a stark geometric shape with the barest calligraphic strokes. The combined effect appears to catch and hold something evanescent — “as elusive as the memory of a pleasant scent or the movement of wind,” as she said in a 1996 interview. Ms. Shinoda’s work also included lithographs; three-dimensional pieces of wood and other materials; and murals in public spaces, including a series made for the Zojoji Temple in Tokyo. The fifth of seven children of a prosperous family, Ms. Shinoda was born on March 28, 1913, in Dalian, in Manchuria, where her father, Raijiro, managed a tobacco plant. Her mother, Joko, was a homemaker. The family returned to Japan when she was a baby, settling in Gifu, midway between Kyoto and Tokyo. One of her father’s uncles, a sculptor and calligrapher, had been an official seal carver to the Meiji emperor. He conveyed his love of art and poetry to Toko’s father, who in turn passed it to Toko. “My upbringing was a very traditional one, with relatives living with my parents,” she said in the U.P.I. interview. “In a scholarly atmosphere, I grew up knowing I wanted to make these things, to be an artist.” She began studying calligraphy at 6, learning, hour by hour, impeccable mastery over line. But by the time she was a teenager, she had begun to seek an artistic outlet that she felt calligraphy, with its centuries-old conventions, could not afford. “I got tired of it and decided to try my own style,” Ms. Shinoda told Time magazine in 1983. “My father always scolded me for being naughty and departing from the traditional way, but I had to do it.” Moving to Tokyo as a young adult, Ms. Shinoda became celebrated throughout Japan as one of the country’s finest living calligraphers, at the time a signal honor for a woman. She had her first solo show in 1940, at a Tokyo gallery. During World War II, when she forsook the city for the countryside near Mount Fuji, she earned her living as a calligrapher, but by the mid-1940s she had started experimenting with abstraction. In 1954 she began to achieve renown outside Japan with her inclusion in an exhibition of Japanese calligraphy at MoMA. In 1956, she traveled to New York. At the time, unmarried Japanese women could obtain only three-month visas for travel abroad, but through zealous renewals, Ms. Shinoda managed to remain for two years. She met many of the titans of Abstract Expressionism there, and she became captivated by their work. “When I was in New York in the ’50s, I was often included in activities with those artists, people like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Motherwell and so forth,” she said in a 1998 interview with The Business Times. “They were very generous people, and I was often invited to visit their studios, where we would share ideas and opinions on our work. It was a great experience being together with people who shared common feelings.” During this period, Ms. Shinoda’s work was sold in the United States by Betty Parsons, the New York dealer who represented Pollock, Rothko and many of their contemporaries. Returning to Japan, Ms. Shinoda began to fuse calligraphy and the Expressionist aesthetic in earnest. The result was, in the words of The Plain Dealer of Cleveland in 1997, “an art of elegant simplicity and high drama.” Among Ms. Shinoda’s many honors, she was depicted, in 2016, on a Japanese postage stamp. She is the only Japanese artist to be so honored during her lifetime. No immediate family members survive. When she was quite young and determined to pursue a life making art, Ms. Shinoda made the decision to forgo the path that seemed foreordained for women of her generation. “I never married and have no children,” she told The Japan Times in 2017. “And I suppose that it sounds strange to think that my paintings are in place of them — of course they are not the same thing at all. But I do say, when paintings that I have made years ago are brought back into my consciousness, it seems like an old friend, or even a part of me, has come back to see me.” Works of a Woman's Hand Toko Shinoda bases new abstractions on ancient calligraphy Down a winding side street in the Aoyama district, western Tokyo. into a chunky white apartment building, then up in an elevator small enough to make a handful of Western passengers friends or enemies for life. At the end of a hall on the fourth floor, to the right, stands a plain brown door. To be admitted is to go through the looking glass. Sayonara today. Hello (Konichiwa) yesterday and tomorrow. Toko Shinoda, 70, lives and works here. She can be, when she chooses, on e of Japans foremost calligraphers, master of an intricate manner of writing that traces its lines back some 3,000 years to ancient China. She is also an avant-garde artist of international renown, whose abstract paintings and lithographs rest in museums around the world. These diverse talents do not seem to belong in the same epoch. Yet they have somehow converged in this diminutive woman who appears in her tiny foyer, offering slippers and ritual bows of greeting. She looks like someone too proper to chip a teacup, never mind revolutionize an old and hallowed art form She wears a blue and white kimono of her own design. Its patterns, she explains, are from Edo, meaning the period of the Tokugawa shoguns, before her city was renamed Tokyo in 1868. Her black hair is pulled back from her face, which is virtually free of lines and wrinkles. except for the gold-rimmed spectacles perched low on her nose (this visionary is apparently nearsighted). Shinoda could have stepped directly from a 19th century Meji print. Her surroundings convey a similar sense of old aesthetics, a retreat in the midst of a modern, frenetic city. The noise of the heavy traffic on a nearby elevated highway sounds at this height like distant surf. delicate bamboo shades filter the daylight. The color arrangement is restful: low ceilings of exposed wood, off-white walls, pastel rugs of blue, green and gray. It all feels so quintessentially Japanese that Shinoda’s opening remarks come as a surprise. She points out (through a translator) that she was not born in Japan at all but in Darien, Manchuria. Her father had been posted there to manage a tobacco company under the aegis of the occupying Japanese forces, which seized the region from Russia in 1905. She says,”People born in foreign places are very free in their thinking, not restricted” But since her family went back to Japan in 1915, when she was two, she could hardly remember much about a liberated childhood? She answers,”I think that if my mother had remained in Japan, she would have been an ordinary Japanese housewife. Going to Manchuria, she was able to assert her own personality, and that left its mark on me.” Evidently so. She wears her obi low on the hips, masculine style. The Porcelain aloofness she displays in photographs shatters in person. Her speech is forceful, her expression animated and her laugh both throaty and infectious. The hand she brings to her mouth to cover her amusement (a traditional female gesture of modesty) does not stand a chance. Her father also made a strong impression on the fifth of his seven children:”He came from a very old family, and he was quite strict in some ways and quite liberal in others.” He owned one of the first three bicycles ever imported to Japan and tinkered with it constantly He also decided that his little daughter would undergo rigorous training in a procrustean antiquity. “I was forced to study from age six on to learn calligraphy,” Shinoda says, The young girl dutifully memorized and copied the accepted models. In one sense, her father had pushed her in a promising direction, one of the few professional fields in Japan open to females. Included among the ancient terms that had evolved around calligraphy was onnade, or woman's writing. Heresy lay ahead. By the time she was 15, she had already been through nine years of intensive discipline, “I got tired of it and decided to try my own style. My father always scolded me for being naughty and departing from the traditional way, but I had to do it.” She produces a brush and a piece of paper to demonstrate the nature of her rebellion. “This is kawa, the accepted calligraphic character for river,” she says, deftly sketching three short vertical strokes. “But I wanted to use more than three lines to show the force of the river.” Her brush flows across the white page, leaving a recognizable river behind, also flowing.” The simple kawa in the traditional language was not enough for me. I wanted to find a new symbol to express the word river.” Her conviction grew that ink could convey the ineffable, the feeling, "as she says, of wind blowing softly.” Another demonstration. She goes to the sliding wooden door of an anteroom and disappears in back of it; the only trace of her is a triangular swatch of the right sleeve of her kimono, which she has arranged for that purpose. A realization dawns. The task of this artist is to paint that three sided pattern so that the invisible woman attached to it will be manifest to all viewers. Gen, painted especially for TIME, shows Shinoda’s theory in practice. She calls the work “my conception of Japan in visual terms.” A dark swath at the left, punctuated by red, stands for history. In the center sits a Chinese character gen, which means in the present or actuality. A blank pattern at the right suggests an unknown future. Once out of school, Shinoda struck off on a path significantly at odds with her culture. She recognized marriage for what it could mean to her career (“a restriction”) and decided against it. There was a living to be earned by doing traditional calligraphy:she used her free time to paint her variations. In 1940 a Tokyo gallery exhibited her work. (Fourteen years would pass before she got a second show.)War came, and bad times for nearly everyone, including the aspiring artist , who retreated to a rural area near Mount Fuji and traded her kimonos for eggs. In 1954 Shinoda’s work was included in a group exhibit at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. Two years later, she overcame bureaucratic obstacles to visit the U.S.. Unmarried Japanese women are allowed visas for only three months, patiently applying for two-month extensions, one at a time, Shinoda managed to travel the country for two years. She pulls out a scrapbook from this period. Leafing through it, she suddenly raises a hand and touches her cheek:”How young I looked!” An inspection is called for. The woman in the grainy, yellowing newspaper photograph could easily be the on e sitting in this room. Told this, she nods and smiles. No translation necessary. Her sojourn in the U.S. proved to be crucial in the recognition and development of Shinoda’s art. Celebrities such as actor Charles Laughton and John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet bought her paintings and spread the good word. She also saw the works of the abstract expressionists, then the rage of the New York City art world, and realized that these Western artists, coming out of an utterly different tradition, were struggling toward the same goal that had obsessed her. Once she was back home, her work slowly made her famous. Although Shinoda has used many materials (fabric, stainless steel, ceramics, cement), brush and ink remain her principal means of expression. She had said, “As long as I am devoted to the creation of new forms, I can draw even with muddy water.” Fortunately, she does not have to. She points with evident pride to her ink stone, a velvety black slab of rock, with an indented basin, that is roughly a foot across and two feet long. It is more than 300 years old. Every working morning, Shinoda pours about a third of a pint of water into it, then selects an ink stick from her extensive collection, some dating back to China’s Ming dynasty. Pressing stick against stone, she begins rubbing. Slowly, the dried ink dissolves in the water and becomes ready for the brush. So two batches of sumi (India ink) are exactly alike; something old, something new. She uses color sparingly. Her clear preference is black and all its gradations. “In some paintings, sumi expresses blue better than blue.” It is time to go downstairs to the living quarters. A niece, divorced and her daughter,10,stay here with Shinoda; the artist who felt forced to renounce family and domesticity at the outset of her career seems welcome to it now. Sake is offered, poured into small cedar boxes and happily accepted. Hold carefully. Drink from a corner. Ambrosial. And just right for the surroundings and the hostess. A conservative renegade; a liberal traditionalist; a woman steeped in the male-dominated conventions that she consistently opposed. Her trail blazing accomplishments are analogous to Picasso’s. When she says goodbye, she bows. --by Paul Gray...
Category

1990s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Plate 209 from Imaginary Beings - Marine Giclée Print on Archival Paper
Located in Brighton, GB
Giclée print on Archival Matte Paper with Archival Pigment Ink. In 2017 she was awarded the New York State Council for the Arts/New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship grant for...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Giclée

Joy - Lithograph by Renzo Bussotti - 1963
Located in Roma, IT
Joy is an original artwork realized by Renzo Bussotti in 1963. Hand-signed and dated in pencil on the lower right; numbered on the lower left. Edition of 60 prints. The artwork is f...
Category

1960s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Esoteric Composition - Screenprint by Mino Meno - 1980s
Located in Roma, IT
Screen print realized by Mino Meno in 1980s. Hand signed lower right. Numbered lower left. Edition of 100. Excellent condition.
Category

1980s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Screen

Untitled By Alexander Calder
Located in Dubai, Dubai
Untitled By Alexander Calder Alexander Calder was a pioneering American sculptor known for his innovative mobiles and stabiles, which challenged traditional notions of sculpture b...
Category

1960s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Knowledge, Damien Hirst, Contemporary, floral, realism, Secrets, Abstraction
Located in Knowle Lane, Cranleigh
Resolution is a limited edition artwork from 'The Secrets' by Damien Hirst - a series of eight unique prints which depict thriving, flourishing gardens after works from Damien Hirst’...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Laminate, Giclée

Spanish Artist signed limited edition original art print silkscreen engraving
Located in Miami, FL
Manuel Velasco (Spain, 1966) 'S/T 1', 1991 silkscreen, collage on paper 27.6 x 19.7 in. (70 x 50 cm.) Edition of 50 Unframed ID: VEL1400-001-050 Hand-signed by author
Category

1990s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Engraving, Screen

Anish Kapoor, Breathing Blue, 2020
Located in Dubai, Dubai
Anish Kapoor, Breathing Blue, 2020 Offset lithograph on 350gsm paper 11.81 H x 16.54 W in 30.0 H x 42.0 W cm Hand numbered (verso) - edition 40/1...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Offset

Big Dipper-- Print, Aquatint, Art by Ed Ruscha
Located in London, GB
Big Dipper, 1982 Ed Ruscha Aquatint in indigo and black, on wove paper Signed, dated and inscribed 'A. P. 4' One of ten artist's proofs aside from the edition of 10 Published by C...
Category

1980s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Aquatint

"Portal I", Abstract Patterns, Geometric Abstraction, Woodcut Monoprint on Panel
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This piece titled "Portal I" is an original piece by Alexis Nutini and is made from a woodcut monoprint mounted on panel. This piece measures 14.5"h x 9.5"w. Born in Mexico City, A...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Panel, Monoprint, Woodcut, Paper

Untitled
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Untitled print by Hans Hofmann. Framed in a light wood frame with a front profile of 1/2 inch and a side profile of 1 3/4 inch. The piece is seated behind a 3 1/2 inch mat. Shipping...
Category

20th Century Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Offset

Untitled
Untitled
$640 Sale Price
20% Off
The Next Wave, by John Van Hamersveld
Located in Palm Springs, CA
The Next Wave relates to The Endless Summer by John Van Hamersveld, an illustration of a cresting wave in the bright colors synonymous with his work. In 1963, Van Hamersveld was hire...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Screen

You Are Not Alone, You have this artwork for company - Contemporary Art
Located in London, GB
David Shrigley You are not alone, 2014 Linocut on wove paper 31 x 21 cm (image) 39 x 29 cm (paper) Edition 42 of 100 signed and numbered by the artist published by Schafer Editions ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints

Materials

Linocut

Contemporary abstract prints for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Contemporary abstract prints 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 abstract prints 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, orange and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Roger Mudre, Rafael Alberti, Johanna Goodman, and Leo Guida. Frequently made by artists working with Paper, and Lithograph and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Contemporary abstract prints, so small editions measuring 0.02 inches across are also available. Prices for abstract prints 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 $50 and tops out at $195,622, while the average work sells for $1,000.

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