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Realist Portrait Prints

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
Untitled (Portrait)
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled (Portrait) Drypoint printed in blue-black graphite mixed with silver, 1974 Signed and dated lower ight (see photo) From: Series entitled Six Drypoints Edition: 23 (4/23) Numbered lower left (see photo) Print Shop: Crown Point Press Printer: Jeannie Fine Publisher: Parasol Press, New York Note: A portfolio is in the collection of the National Gallery, Australia, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco- de Young/Legion of Honor, Davis Museum at Wellesley College and the Yale University Art Gallery. Condition: Excellent Image/Plate size: 6 3/8 x 5 3/8 inches Sheet size: 24 x 20 inches From a portfolio of six drypoints, printed with unqiue combination of blue-black graphite shavings combined with silver to create the appearence of an original drawing. I know of no other artist to use a similar printing technique. William Bailey studied art at the University of Kansas, Yale University and Yale School of Art where he studied with Josef Albers receiving his MFA in 1957. Mr. Bailey’s first exhibition in New York was at Robert Schoelkopf Gallery in 1968, where he showed regularly until its closing in 1990. During the 90’s he exhibited at the Andre Emmerich Gallery and on its closing, exhibited at the Robert Miller Gallery. In 2004 Bailey moved to the Betty Cuningham Gallery where his most recent exhibition was held from April 30 - June 11, 2016. Mr. Bailey’s work has been exhibited extensively in both America and Europe. He is represented in the collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among others. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in painting in 1965. Mr. Bailey was elected to The National Academy of Design in 1983 and to The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1986. Mr. Bailey taught at The Yale School of Art from 1958 to 1962 and from 1969 to 1995. He has also taught at The Cooper Union, University of Pennsylvania and Indiana University. He maintains studios in New Haven and in Umbertide, Italy. Courtesy Betty Cunningham Gallery Tribute to William Bailey THE NEW YORK TIMES William Bailey, whose pristine, idealized still lifes and female nudes made him one of the leading figures in the return of figurative art in the 1980s, died on April 13 at his home in Branford, Conn. He was 89. His death was confirmed by his daughter, Alix Bailey. Beyond his painting, Mr. Bailey influenced generations of students in his many years as a teacher at the Yale School of Art. In some of his best-known work, Mr. Bailey arranged simple objects — the eggs, bowls, bottles and vases that he once called “my repertory company” — along a severe horizontal shelf, or on a plain table, swathing them in a breathless, deceptively serene atmosphere heavy with mystery. William Bailey, Modernist Figurative Painter, Dies at 89 He swathed his nudes and still lifes of eggs, vases, bottles and bowls in a breathless, deceptively serene atmosphere heavy with mystery. The painter William Bailey in 2009. He was never given a career survey in a major museum, but his influence, particulary on students at Yale, was deep. Ford Bailey By William Grimes for the New York Times April 18, 2020 William Bailey, whose pristine, idealized still lifes and female nudes made him one of the leading figures in the return of figurative art in the 1980s, died on April 13 at his home in Branford, Conn. He was 89. His death was confirmed by his daughter, Alix Bailey. Beyond his painting, Mr. Bailey influenced generations of students in his many years as a teacher at the Yale School of Art. In some of his best-known work, Mr. Bailey arranged simple objects — the eggs, bowls, bottles and vases that he once called “my repertory company” — along a severe horizontal shelf, or on a plain table, swathing them in a breathless, deceptively serene atmosphere heavy with mystery. His muted ochres, grays and powdery blues conjured up a still, timeless world inhabited by Platonic forms, recognizable but uncanny, in part because he painted from imagination rather than life. “They are at once vividly real and objects in dream, and it is the poetry of this double life that elevates all this humble crockery to the realm of pictorial romance,” Hilton Kramer wrote in The New York Times in 1979. Mr. Bailey’s female figures, some clothed in a simple shift or robe and others partly or entirely nude, are disconcertingly impassive, implacable and unreadable, fleshly presences breathing an otherworldly air. The critic Mark Stevens, writing in Newsweek in 1982, credited Mr. Bailey with helping to “restore representational art to a position of consequence in modern painting.” But his version of representation was entirely idiosyncratic, seemingly traditional but in fact “a modernism so contrarian,” the artist Alexi Worth wrote in a catalog essay for the William Harrison Bailey...
Category

1970s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Drypoint

Ballroom Dancing
Located in Chesterfield, MI
Couples Ballroom Dancing is a very attractive print that is VERY nicely framed-- A wonderful accent to a living room or bedroom! 16 x 16 in size and it is wired and ready to hang.
Category

20th Century Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Ballroom Dancing
Ballroom Dancing
$97 Sale Price
25% Off
Tiger 1, David Hunt, Limited Edition Print, Animal Artwork, Black And White Art
Located in Deddington, GB
David Hunt Tiger 1 Limited Edition Giclee Print Edition of 10 Framed Size: H 84cm x W 84cm x D 3.5cm Sold Framed Please note that in situ images are purely an indication of how a piece may look. Tiger 1 is an original work on paper by artist, David Hunt. David Hunt comments "after a career that has ranged from working on oil rigs in Africa and Central Asia to running my own business building shepherd's huts for private clients I have now returned to my first loves of drawing and draftsmanship. I am mostly self taught and have studied intaglio etching techniques with john Howard R.E. and Melvyn...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Giclée

SHOWER PROFILE (PINK)
Located in Aventura, FL
Silkscreen on canvas with diamond dust. Hand signed, dated, and numbered on verso by the artist. Edition of 25. Canvas is stretched. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certificate ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Canvas, Screen

Homeless. 19th Century Etching
By Charles-Jean-Louis Courtry
Located in Brecon, Powys
A very poignant depiction. A H Marsh is one of the English artists who devoted themselves to the representation of pathetic subjects. The gravity of this painter's idea is always to ...
Category

Late 19th Century Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Etching

Cap'n A.B Dick (A) gray fisherman portrait sou'wester hat R.B. Kitaj lithograph
Located in New York, NY
Kitaj’s drawing is of a fisherman in profile, wearing a sou’wester: a collapsible rain hat. The image is a wry portrait, ostensibly of Albert Blake Dick, ...
Category

1970s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Lithograph

SERENA SUITE
Located in Aventura, FL
Suite of 4 prints. Each hand signed, dated, and numbered by the artist. Each print measures 33.5 x 24 inches. Hand numbered TP 3/5 (there was a manin edition of 30 plus 10 artist'...
Category

2010s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Mixed Media, Archival Paper, Screen

SERENA SUITE
SERENA SUITE
$15,960 Sale Price
20% Off
Una (Portrait of a Creole Lady)
Located in New York, NY
Gerald Leslie Brockhurst (1891-1978), Una (Portrait of a Creole Lady), etching, 1929, signed in pencil lower right, and also inscribed by the artist: “2nd State, GB”. Reference: Flet...
Category

1920s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Etching

Portrait of Slevogt
Located in New York, NY
Emil Orlik (1870-1932), Portrait of Slevogt, etching, 1921, signed in pencil and numbered (27/100) [also signed and dated in the plate], from the presumed edition of 100. In very goo...
Category

1920s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Etching

A Galway Peasant (also, An Irish Peasant)
Located in New York, NY
Gerald Brockhurst (1890-1978), A Galway Peasant (also, An Irish Peasant), etching, 1920, signed in pencil lower right. Reference: Fletcher 10, from the edition of 55, third state (of...
Category

1920s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Etching

Similitudes
Located in New York, NY
Jean- Louis Forain (1852-1931), Similitudes, etching and drypoint, not signed [signed in the plate upper right], 1880, from the total edition of 545, on wove paper, in generally good...
Category

1880s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Drypoint

YOUNG WOMAN RED VEST Signed Lithograph, Standing Woman Hair Up, Green Dress
Located in Union City, NJ
YOUNG WOMAN RED VEST is an original hand drawn (not digitally or photo reproduced) limited edition lithograph by the artist Raphael Soyer - Russian/American S...
Category

1970s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Buffalo Bill 1899 Original Battle of San Juan Hill 1 sheet of a 24 sheet poster
Located in Southampton, NY
This rare original lithograph print is from 1899. It is one sheet of a huge 24 sheet poster that was created in 1899 to announce Buffalo Bills Wild West. The size of the complete 24 sheet poster would have been approx. 10 feet tall by 20 feet wide and would have been posted on barns and buildings in 1899 to promote Buffalo Bills Wild West before it would come to towns. This 1 sheet of the 24 sheet lithograph is in such good condition because it was found in the Lithographers draws of the print shop that created the poster. It is black and white because it was a proof that was used to create the final layout of the color poster. It indicates on the image that it is No. 2 Buffalo Bill San Juan Hill 1899, so it would have been the 2nd poster down on the left side of the large total image comprised of 24 separate sheets all unique to create the full image. You can see the two black printed lines on the left side indicate where the edge of the poster would have been. We have never seen a complete image of this rare 1899 poster. When we first acquired this rare proof over 20 years ago, we contacted the The Ringling Museum in Florida that houses a large Buffalo Bill poster...
Category

1890s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Paper, Ink, Lithograph

SHOWER PROFILE (SILVER)
Located in Aventura, FL
Silkscreen on canvas with diamond dust. Hand signed, dated, and numbered on verso by the artist. Edition of 25. Canvas is not stretched. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certific...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Canvas, Screen

Ballroom Dancing
Located in Chesterfield, MI
Couples Ballroom Dancing is a very attractive print that is VERY nicely framed-- A wonderful accent to a living room or bedroom! 16 x 16 in size an...
Category

20th Century Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Lithograph

SHOWER PORTRAIT (GOLD)
Located in Aventura, FL
Silkscreen on canvas with diamond dust. Hand signed, dated, and numbered on verso by the artist. Edition of 25. Canvas is not stretched. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certific...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Canvas, Screen

SHOWER PORTRAIT (SILVER)
Located in Aventura, FL
Silkscreen on canvas with diamond dust. Hand signed, dated, and numbered on verso by the artist. Edition of 25. Canvas is stretched. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certificate of authenticity included. All reasonable offers will be considered. About the Artist: Carole A. Feuerman is an American Hyper-Realist sculptor. Along with artists like Duane Hanson...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Canvas, Screen

SHOWER PROFILE (WHITE)
Located in Aventura, FL
Silkscreen on canvas with diamond dust. Hand signed, dated, and numbered on verso by the artist. Edition of 25. Canvas is stretched. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certificate ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Canvas, Screen

Dup...
Located in New York, NY
Honore Daumier (1808-1879), “Dup…”, lithograph, 1832, from the series Celebrites de la Caricature, plate 171. Reference: Delteil 45, Daumier Register 45, only state. In generally goo...
Category

1830s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Lithograph

"Girl With Flowers, " Lithograph signed by an unknown artist (WJR)
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Girl With Flowers" is a lithograph printed in brown, signed and dated in stone upper left WJR. It depicts the head of a girl with short hair surrounded by floating flowers. 14.5" ...
Category

1920s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Lithograph

SHOWER PROFILE (GOLD)
Located in Aventura, FL
Silkscreen on canvas with diamond dust. Hand signed, dated, and numbered on verso by Carole A Feuerman. Edition of 25. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certificate of authenticity included. All reasonable offers will be considered. About the Artist: Carole A. Feuerman (American, born 1945) is a Hyper-Realist sculptor. Along with artists like Duane Hanson...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Canvas, Screen

Judy
Located in West Hollywood, CA
A magnificent original lithograph by American artist Beth van Hoesen. Noted as a master printmaker, van Hoesen exhibited at the de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; Achenbach ...
Category

1970s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Judy
Price Upon Request

Realist portrait prints for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Realist portrait 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 portrait prints created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of pink, orange, yellow and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Raphael Soyer, Carole Feuerman, Ronald Brooks Kitaj, and (after) David Hockney. Frequently made by artists working with Lithograph, and Etching 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 portrait prints, so small editions measuring 3.75 inches across are also available. Prices for portrait 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 $125 and tops out at $14,500, while the average work sells for $809.

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