Skip to main content

Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

SURREALIST STYLE

In the wake of World War I’s ravaging of Europe, artists delved into the unconscious mind to confront and grapple with this reality. Poet and critic André Breton, a leader of the Surrealist movement who authored the 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, called this approach “a violent reaction against the impoverishment and sterility of thought processes that resulted from centuries of rationalism.” Surrealist art emerged in the 1920s with dreamlike and uncanny imagery guided by a variety of techniques such as automatic drawing, which can be likened to a stream of consciousness, to channel psychological experiences.

Although Surrealism was a groundbreaking approach for European art, its practitioners were inspired by Indigenous art and ancient mysticism for reenvisioning how sculptures, paintings, prints, performance art and more could respond to the unsettled world around them.

Surrealist artists were also informed by the Dada movement, which originated in 1916 Zurich and embraced absurdity over the logic that had propelled modernity into violence. Some of the Surrealists had witnessed this firsthand, such as Max Ernst, who served in the trenches during World War I, and Salvador Dalí, whose otherworldly paintings and other work responded to the dawning civil war in Spain.

Other key artists associated with the revolutionary art and literary movement included Man Ray, Joan Miró, René Magritte, Yves Tanguy, Frida Kahlo and Meret Oppenheim, all of whom had a distinct perspective on reimagining reality and freeing the unconscious mind from the conventions and restrictions of rational thought. Pablo Picasso showed some of his works in “La Peinture Surréaliste” — the first collective exhibition of Surrealist painting — which opened at Paris’s Galerie Pierre in November of 1925. (Although Magritte is best known as one of the visual Surrealist movement’s most talented practitioners, his famous 1943 painting, The Fifth Season, can be interpreted as a formal break from Surrealism.)

The outbreak of World War II led many in the movement to flee Europe for the Americas, further spreading Surrealism abroad. Generations of modern and contemporary artists were subsequently influenced by the richly symbolic and unearthly imagery of Surrealism, from Joseph Cornell to Arshile Gorky.

Find a collection of original Surrealist paintings, sculptures, prints and multiples and more art on 1stDibs.

to
1
1
Overall Height
to
Overall Width
to
4
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Style: Surrealist
Color:  Green
Assyrian King - Resin and Metal Surrealist Bust Sculpture of a King
Located in New York, NY
Angelo Canevari’s Assyrian King is a 25 x 14 inch mix media surrealist sculpture. It is made of metal, resin, automotive paint, and cardboard. It is a surrealist interpretation of a bust of an Assyrian King. The use of metal and wires to develop a tridimensional sculptural quality, as well as the expressionistic outcome of the imagery, has echoes in some contemporary African sculpture...
Category

Early 2000s Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Metal

Related Items
Hourglass (blue): glass sculpture sand, cast camera & quartz crystal; New in box
Located in New York, NY
DANIEL ARSHAM Hourglass (Blue), 2019 Glass, sand, cast miniature camera and quartz crystal in opaque white resin accompanied by its original box with guara...
Category

2010s Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Glass, Resin, Plaster, Mixed Media, Plastic, Cardboard

Visiteur Boudeur - Monumental Contemporary Resin Outdoor Sculpture
Located in Miami, FL
Mariko’s sculptures are unique and monumental contemporary pieces made of resin and reinforced with an inside metallic structure, finished with a bi-component urethane paint, extreme...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Resin, Automotive Paint, Polyurethane

Horse and Rider Sculpture Maquette
Located in New York, NY
TOM OTTERNESS Horse and Rider Maquette, 2003 White Resin Sculpture held in original box 5 1/2 × 3 1/2 × 2 inches Signed Tom Otterness Incised signature on the feet (see photos) Limited Edition (exact number produced unknown) This 2004 Horse and Rider black resin maquette is a miniature of famed American public sculptor Tom Otterness's large bronze "Horse and Rider" sculpture located at Texas Tech University's Student Union Gathering Pavilion. Rarely found in the original vintage box - this is a collectors item! The original piece was commissioned by the Student Union to celebrate Texas Tech's famous mascot - "The Masked Rider". Otterness' version of the mascot depicts the Masked Rider atop of the horse, kicking its “feet triumphantly in the quest for truth,” as he describes. (The tradition of the Masked Rider started as a dare in 1936 when an unidentified masked or ghost rider would circle the football field during home games. The Masked Rider became an official Texas Tech mascot in 1954.) The artist made a limited series of white and black resin multiples back in 2003 as a result of numerous requests by students for affordable models of the Horse and Rider. They were only available for sale by the Texas Tech student union and sold out very quickly. Although there is no stated edition, it was a one-off offering, produced by the artist just for Texas Tech students, with no second editions ever made. Once they sold out - that was it. Now Otterness' "Horse & Rider" is a highly desirable vintage collectors item. Created in an unknown but very limited first edition only back in 2003. Horse and Rider is difficult to find, - so if you're an Otterness (or Texas Tech) fan, we recommend you snag this one! About Tom Otterness: Tom Otterness was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1952. He came to New York City in 1970 to study at the Arts Students League, and in 1973 took part in the Whitney Independent Study Program. In 1977 he became a member of Collaborative Projects, a pioneering community of independent artists, and took a leading role in organizing Colab’s 1980 Times Square Show, which was called “the first avant-garde art show of the ‘80s” by the Village Voice. Otterness is one of a handful of contemporary artists invited to design a balloon for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, for which he devised a tumbling Humpty-Dumpty in 2005. Otterness lives and works in New York. Otterness may well be “the world’s best public sculptor,” as the art critic Ken Johnson opined in the New York Times in 2002. Public art is his focus, and Otterness has had major outdoor exhibitions of his sculptures on the Park Avenue Mall in New York (2003), in more than a dozen sites in downtown Indianapolis (2005), on the grounds of the Beverly Hills city hall (2005-06) and throughout Grand Rapids, Michigan (2006). His first solo exhibition, held at Brooke Alexander Gallery in New York in 1983, featured elements of The New World (1991), a white plaster frieze of 250 nude “Ur-people,” as essayist Hayden Herrera called them, eventually destined for the plaza of the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles, a General Services Administration commission. In the U.S., Otterness has completed at least three dozen public commissions, including Life Underground (2004), his celebrated multi-figural bronze sculpture installation for the New York Metropolitan Transportation Agency at the 14th Street station on the Eighth Avenue subway lines. His international commissions include public plazas in Münster, Germany (1993), Toronto, Canada (2007), and Seoul, South Korea (2010), and a large public park in Scheveningen, the Netherlands (2004). In 2013, Creation Myth, a gateway park for the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, N.Y., was dedicated. Otterness has exhibited his work at John Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco, and other important contemporary art galleries. His most recent exhibition, Metal on Paper: Silverpoint, Copperpoint & Steelpoint Drawings, opened at Marlborough in September 2015. Works by Otterness are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Eli Broad Family Foundation, the Brooklyn Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Carnegie Museum, the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and others. He was elected a member of the National Academy in 1994. Most recently, Otterness has installed The Tables from the collection of the Whitney and 50 new sculptures in niches at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, as part of the group exhibition, The Value of Food. On a personal note, Otterness has practiced Tai Chi, martial arts, and boxing in the school of William C. C. Chen since the 1970s, and his studio features a boxing bag...
Category

Early 2000s Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Resin, Mixed Media, Cardboard

A Magisterial Mixed Media Cardboard Sculpture, "As the Crow Flies"
Located in San Diego, CA
A one of a kind 19" x 44" x 10" Magisterial Mixed Media surreal Cardboard Sculpture executed by artist Debbie Korbel. A certificate of authenticity will be provided upon its purchase...
Category

2010s Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Cardboard

Visiteur Boudeur - Monumental Contemporary Resin Outdoor Sculpture
Located in Miami, FL
Mariko’s sculptures are unique and monumental contemporary pieces made of resin and reinforced with an inside metallic structure, finished with a bi-component urethane paint, extreme...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Resin, Automotive Paint, Polyurethane

"I Remember" Norma Minkowitz, Contemporary mixed media textile sculpture
Located in Wilton, CT
This mixed media textile sculpture was done by American fiber artist, Norma Minkowitz (b. 1937). The interlacing technique that Minkowitz uses as seen ...
Category

Early 2000s Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Metal

"Case Runner, " Mixed Media Sculpture, 2022
Located in Chicago, IL
To Chicago-based artist Patrick Fitzgerald, his sculptures are a means of traveling through time. Working from found materials, Fitzgerald constructs miniature soap box cars...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Wire

Visiteur Boudeur - Monumental Contemporary Resin Outdoor Sculpture
Located in Miami, FL
Mariko’s sculptures are unique and monumental contemporary pieces made of resin and reinforced with an inside metallic structure, finished with a bi-component urethane paint, extreme...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Resin, Automotive Paint, Polyurethane

Limited Edition Historic 1st Companion Ever (Hand Signed and Dated '00 by KAWS)
By KAWS
Located in New York, NY
Historic Collectors item! RARELY found hand signed by the artist. KAWS Limited Edition 1st Companion (Hand Signed by KAWS), 1999 Painted Cast Vinyl (Hand Signed & Dated by KAWS) 7 3...
Category

1990s Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Paint, Mixed Media, Permanent Marker, Resin, Plastic, Board, Offset

Hot Fuzz - Contemporary Surrealist Sculpture
Located in Vienna, AT
Kenji Lim Hot Fuzz 2023 48 x 32 x 16 cm Mixed Media (Resin, Fake fur, glass pearls, glass vase, silicone, sand) Unique The tourist takes snapshots of life. Experiences are simultane...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Resin, Mixed Media, Silicone, Glass

"Pylon Truck, " Mixed Media Sculpture, 2022
Located in Chicago, IL
To Chicago-based artist Patrick Fitzgerald, his miniature car sculptures are a means of traveling through time. Born from a fascination with the soap box derby cars of his youth, each vehicle is an exercise in imagining the future through the lens of the past – or vice versa. Built from found materials collected over the years, the car's futuristic form is layered with personal memories and keepsakes from the past. The most minute of details is always intentional – from the weathered finish to the fictitious sponsor to the miniaturized furnishings of the cramped interior. This sculptural car entitled "Pylon Trunk" is intended as a complement to the rest of Fitzgerald's imaginative cars, something of a service vehicle loaded with removable traffic cones and street signs. A simple truck bed...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Wire

"Tururu" figurative animal sculpture, translucid resin, purple
Located in Ciudad de México, MX
The artwork of Alejandra España is an invitation to her intimate cosmogony. In it, she displays modules to give meaning to the observer through the configuration of maps or cartograp...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Surrealist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Resin

Surrealist figurative sculptures for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Surrealist figurative sculptures 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 figurative sculptures created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of purple, green and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Salvador Dalí, (after) Salvador Dali, David Barnett, and Gary Alsum. Frequently made by artists working with Metal, and Ceramic and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Surrealist figurative sculptures, so small editions measuring 2 inches across are also available. Prices for figurative sculptures 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 $273 and tops out at $250,000, while the average work sells for $3,400.

Recently Viewed

View All