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Abstract Sculptures

ABSTRACT STYLE

Beginning in the early 20th century, abstract art became a leading style of modernism. Rather than portray the world in a way that represented reality, as had been the dominating style of Western art in the previous centuries, abstract paintings, prints and sculptures are marked by a shift to geometric forms, gestural shapes and experimentation with color to express ideas, subject matter and scenes.

Although abstract art flourished in the early 1900s, propelled by movements like Fauvism and Cubism, it was rooted in the 19th century. In the 1840s, J.M.W. Turner emphasized light and motion for atmospheric paintings in which concrete details were blurred, and Paul Cézanne challenged traditional expectations of perspective in the 1890s.

Some of the earliest abstract artists — Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint — expanded on these breakthroughs while using vivid colors and forms to channel spiritual concepts. Painter Piet Mondrian, a Dutch pioneer of the art movement, explored geometric abstraction partly owing to his belief in Theosophy, which is grounded in a search for higher spiritual truths and embraces philosophers of the Renaissance period and medieval mystics. Black Square, a daringly simple 1913 work by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, was a watershed statement on creating art that was free “from the dead weight of the real world,” as he later wrote.

Surrealism in the 1920s, led by artists such as Salvador Dalí, Meret Oppenheim and others, saw painters creating abstract pieces in order to connect to the subconscious. When Abstract Expressionism emerged in New York during the mid-20th century, it similarly centered on the process of creation, in which Helen Frankenthaler’s expressive “soak-stain” technique, Jackson Pollock’s drips of paint, and Mark Rothko’s planes of color were a radical new type of abstraction.

Conceptual art, Pop art, Hard-Edge painting and many other movements offered fresh approaches to abstraction that continued into the 21st century, with major contemporary artists now exploring it, including Anish Kapoor, Mark Bradford, El Anatsui and Julie Mehretu.

Find original abstract paintings, sculptures, prints and other art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Abstract
The Solar Eclipse
The Solar Eclipse

The Solar Eclipse

By Tanbelia

Located in Zofingen, AG

'The Solar Eclipse' Size 18 x 18 x 7 inches (46 x 46 х 17 cm). Materials: copper, solar battery light, pvc. You can hang it on the hook on the screws, or nails or hang it by a str...

Category

2010s Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Copper

"Flow" Chrome metallic glazed ceramic abstract sculpture
"Flow" Chrome metallic glazed ceramic abstract sculpture

"Flow" Chrome metallic glazed ceramic abstract sculpture

By Jessamyn Go

Located in East Quogue, NY

Hand-pitched chrome metallic glazed ceramic sculpture vessel by Jessamyn Go. Jessamyn Go's work is deeply rooted in the visceral, meditative experience of working with clay. Drawn t...

Category

2010s Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Ceramic, Stoneware, Glaze

Abstract Serpentine Stone Sculpture by G. Krueger
Abstract Serpentine Stone Sculpture by G. Krueger

Abstract Serpentine Stone Sculpture by G. Krueger

Located in Soquel, CA

Organic abstract sculpture by G. Krueger. The Serpentine stone has gorgeous earth-toned green, yellow, and orange hues, sculpted into a flowing shape in the style of Herman Miller Sc...

Category

Late 20th Century Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Stone

Tribute to Jean Arp
Tribute to Jean Arp

Tribute to Jean Arp

By Jean Arp

Located in Los Angeles, CA

Tribute to Jean Arp. This decorative piece has been painted by hand on glazed porcelain with an intense red color. Jean Arp Sargadelos Porcelain Vase. last quarter 20th Century sign...

Category

1980s Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Porcelain

Sfera con perforazione
Sfera con perforazione

Sfera con perforazione

By Arnaldo Pomodoro

Located in London, GB

An exceptional example of Arnaldo Pomodoro’s iconic Sfera con Sfera series, — a pivotal period in the artist’s exploration of fractured geometric perfection. Signed, dated "'66," and...

Category

1960s Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Colorful Textured Mixed Media Wall Sculpture with Candy-Like Spheres and Circle
Colorful Textured Mixed Media Wall Sculpture with Candy-Like Spheres and Circle

Colorful Textured Mixed Media Wall Sculpture with Candy-Like Spheres and Circle

By Elizabeth Art Candy

Located in FISTERRA, ES

Colorful textured mixed media wall sculpture composed of clustered candy-like spheres and a contrasting lavender circular form. This wall-mounted artwork by Elizabeth Art Candy pres...

Category

2010s Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Clay, Spray Paint, Board

Balance

Balance

By Greg Joubert

Located in Santa Fe, NM

Hand carved aspen wood sculpture torched burnished and painted Greg Joubert was born in 1977 and raised in the seaside New England town of Hingham, Massachusetts. Joubert gained hi...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Wood, Acrylic

Dark Green Seapod Ceramic Vessel Sculpture
Dark Green Seapod Ceramic Vessel Sculpture

Dark Green Seapod Ceramic Vessel Sculpture

By Adrienne Fierman

Located in East Quogue, NY

"Dark Green Seapod", Ceramic Sculpture Dimensions: 5 H × 5.5 W × 5.5 D Medium: Hand-built ceramic, glazed stoneware Hand-built ceramic sculpture finished in a green glaze. Adrienne ...

Category

2010s Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Ceramic, Stoneware

NEAR MISS, Abstract Sculpture in white stoneware with slip decoration, 2013

NEAR MISS, Abstract Sculpture in white stoneware with slip decoration, 2013

By Don Reitz

Located in Phoenix, AZ

white stoneware, with slip decoration b. 1929 – d. 2014 Don Reitz referred to his medium of choice as “dirt.” Simply put, clay is dirt or earth, and “burnt earth” is pottery. He ...

Category

2010s Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Ceramic, Stoneware, Slip

Tribute to NIKI in Stainless Steel
Tribute to NIKI in Stainless Steel

Tribute to NIKI in Stainless Steel

By Guillaume Roche

Located in Pasadena, CA

Guillaume ROCHE The artist translates movement and energy through the dynamism of assemblages and seeks the balance of composition. His sculptures offer aerial movements, round sh...

Category

Early 2000s Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Stainless Steel

Cuerpos Magnéticos Autum. Wall sculpture
Cuerpos Magnéticos Autum. Wall sculpture

Cuerpos Magnéticos Autum. Wall sculpture

By Carla Gimbatti

Located in Miami Beach, FL

From the series Cuerpos Magnéticos (Magetic Bodies) Cuerpos Magnéticos was born searching for the relationship between nature and our bodies, attraction and rejection. We see rocks,...

Category

2010s Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Epoxy Resin, Pigment

"The Playful Journey" Acrylic on Copper Abstract Composition 1997
"The Playful Journey" Acrylic on Copper Abstract Composition 1997

"The Playful Journey" Acrylic on Copper Abstract Composition 1997

By Stephen Schulz

Located in Soquel, CA

Bold and dynamic abstract composition titled "The Playful Journey" by Stephen Schulz (American, b. 1948). Schulz has used various types of acrylic paint, mixed with silicon to create a variety of textures. Signed and dated "Schulz 97" on verso, with an inscription that reads "For Leo and his Beautiful Family". Wood support frame on verso. Stephen Schulz (American, b. 1948) is an artist who has lived and worked in Fresno and Santa Cruz, California, and Cedar Grove, New Jersey. He has studied privately with Julie Connell, Jan Daniels, Michele Faia, Elle Fielder, Sal Pecoraro, Susan Stover, and Chris Volpe. Artist’s Statement: “My painting and artistic expression opens the doorway into an unconscious and creative world, where an uninhibited expression can take place, as one becomes immersed without the perception of time. Painting and design started it. From the beginning the process of transforming materials into art has struck me as a magical alchemy and, over the years, that mysterious process has had its hold on me, leading me from hobby to art. The creative process fills me with a sense of wonder and has proven a most amenable vehicle for transforming inner vision to outer reality. I paint from the inside out. Though I work quite deliberately, consciously employing both traditional and innovative techniques, my unconscious is the region of the most fertile of creative soil. I love working with a full complement of colors but often find my design direction working within the narrow spectrum of black and white, shadow and light. Some of my early inspiration comes from the New York School and artists such as Franz Kline and Jackson Pollock. Their ideas and techniques have helped to free my mind to explore areas of the unconscious that aren’t restricted by the world of right and wrong, good and bad. The journey continues and I feel blessed to have the opportunity to explore this exquisite world of the creative process.” Education: University of Oklahoma: 1966-1967 Canada College, AA Degree: 1972-1974 University of California: 1974-1975 Exhibitions: 2014 - Studio show Fresno, CA 2010 - Dubai (UAI) Animal rights show; Gallery 10, Washington, DC 2008, 2009 - Jia Salon & Gallery, Fresno, CA 2007 - Studio Exhibition 2006 - Cabrillo College 2004 - Studio Exhibition 2000, 2001, 2002 - Rollf's Gallery, Fresno, CA 2000 - Studio show; Bridgeport Gallery, CT 1999 - Tercera Gallery, Los Gatos, CA; Matt Miller Design, SF, CA 1998 - Robin Hutchins Gallery, NJ; Teroera Gallery Los Gatos, CA; Verve Gallery Los Angeles, CA; Open Studio Aptos, CA; Brigitte Bohlem, Hamburg, Germany 1997 - Robin Hutchins Gallery, NJ; Teroera Gallery, Los Gatos, CA; Verve Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; The Pope Gallery, Santa Cruz, CA; Hanson Art Source, Tennessee 1996 - Robin Hutchins Gallery, NJ; Teroera Gallery Los Gatos, CA; Verve Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; The Pope Gallery Santa Cruz, CA; Hanson Art Source, Tennessee; Barlett Fine Arts, Pleasant, CA; Birchstone, Gallery, Wisconsin 1995 - Abrahamsen Design; Teroera Gallery Los Gatos, CA; Verve Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; The Pope Gallery Santa Cruz, CA; Hanson Art Source, Tennessee; Barlett Fine Arts, Pleasant, CA; Birchstone, Gallery, Wisconsin; l&I Gallery, NJ; Gillen Design, London Ontario Canada...

Category

1990s Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Copper

Bow-White
Bow-White

Bow-White

By Masakazu Kobayashi

Located in Wilton, CT

"[Masakazu Kobayashi's] woven Waves in dyed threads rank[s] among the most perfect in aesthetic effectiveness ever produced by contemporary weaving….This Japanese way of conjuring up such transparency with threads, of perceiving the thread itself as something creative is highly artistic. They celebrate aesthetic beauty in a way no one can elude.” From “Textile Art and the Avant-garde,” Erika Billeter (Contemporary Textile Art: the Collection of the Pierre Pauli...

Category

1990s Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Metal

Golden Orbit Contemporary Aluminum  sculpture for Outdoors
Golden Orbit Contemporary Aluminum  sculpture for Outdoors

Golden Orbit Contemporary Aluminum sculpture for Outdoors

By Kuno Vollet

Located in DE

Very large Contemporary powder coated aluminum sculpture for inside or garden outdoor spaces. Beautiful spiral dancing and intertwining. This is a large scale outdoor or indoor scul...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Metal

Reclining Figure (woman)
Reclining Figure (woman)

Reclining Figure (woman)

By William King (b.1925)

Located in Wilton Manors, FL

William King (1925-2015). Reclining figure, ca. 1965. Cast and welded bronze, 7 x 9.5 x 5 inches. Unsigned. William King, a sculptor in a variety of materials whose human figures traced social attitudes through the last half of the 20th century, often poking sly and poignant fun at human follies and foibles, died on March 4 at his home in East Hampton, N.Y. He was 90. His death was confirmed by Scott Chaskey, who is married to Mr. King's stepdaughter, Megan Chaskey. Mr. King worked in clay, wood, bronze, vinyl, burlap and aluminum. He worked both big and small, from busts and toylike figures to large public art pieces depicting familiar human poses -- a seated, cross-legged man reading; a Western couple (he in a cowboy hat, she in a long dress) holding hands; a tall man reaching down to tug along a recalcitrant little boy; a crowd of robotic-looking men walking in lock step. But for all its variation, what unified his work was a wry observer's arched eyebrow, the pointed humor and witty rue of a fatalist. His figurative sculptures, often with long, spidery legs and an outlandishly skewed ratio of torso to appendages, use gestures and posture to suggest attitude and illustrate his own amusement with the unwieldiness of human physical equipment. His subjects included tennis players and gymnasts, dancers and musicians, and he managed to show appreciation of their physical gifts and comic delight at their contortions and costumery. His suit-wearing businessmen often appeared haughty or pompous; his other men could seem timid or perplexed or awkward. Oddly, or perhaps tellingly, he tended to depict women more reverentially, though in his portrayals of couples the fragility and tender comedy inherent in couplehood settled equally on both partners. Mr. King's work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, among other places, and he had dozens of solo gallery shows in New York and elsewhere. But the comic element of his work probably caused his reputation to suffer. Reviews of his exhibitions frequently began with the caveat that even though the work was funny, it was also serious, displaying superior technical skills, imaginative vision and the bolstering weight of a range of influences, from the ancient Etruscans to American folk art to 20th-century artists including Giacometti, Calder. and Elie Nadelman. The critic Hilton Kramer, one of Mr. King's most ardent advocates, wrote in a 1970 essay accompanying a New York gallery exhibit that he was, "among other things, an amusing artist, and nowadays this can, at times, be almost as much a liability as an asset." A "preoccupation with gesture is the focus of King's sculptural imagination," Mr. Kramer wrote. "Everything that one admires in his work - the virtuoso carving, the deft handling of a wide variety of materials, the shrewd observation and resourceful invention - all this is secondary to the concentration on gesture. The physical stance of the human animal as it negotiates the social arena, the unconscious gait that the body assumes in making its way in the social medium, the emotion traced by the course of a limb, a torso, a head, the features of a face, a coiffure or a costume - from a keen observation of these materials King has garnered a large stock of sculptural images notable for their wit, empathy, simplicity and psychological precision." William Dickey King...

Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

'My Heart That Blooms in the Darkness of The Night'
'My Heart That Blooms in the Darkness of The Night'

'My Heart That Blooms in the Darkness of The Night'

By Yayoi Kusama

Located in New York, NY

Yayoi Kusama’s My Heart That Blooms in the Darkness of the Night (2012) is a striking example of her ability to merge visual art with emotional depth and symbolic resonance. Crafted ...

Category

2010s Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Copper

Untitled
Untitled

Untitled

Located in San Diego, CA

Abstract bronze sculpture by artist Clyde Ball on cast concrete base. Circa 1970's, signed on base. The patina on this piece is dark, with hints of ...

Category

20th Century Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Concrete, Bronze

Black Crush - Black Ceramic Porcelain Vase
Black Crush - Black Ceramic Porcelain Vase

Black Crush - Black Ceramic Porcelain Vase

By Mary Jaffe

Located in East Quogue, NY

"Black Crush" Porcelain sculptural vase with black satin glaze. Size: 11.5 x 6.5 x 6.5 Porcelain, ceramic, ceramic sculpture, functional sculpture, functional vessel, vessel, cerami...

Category

2010s Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Porcelain, Glaze

Untitled

Untitled

Located in Phoenix, AZ

ceramic and wood Tetsuya Yamada (b. 1968, Tokyo) studied traditional Japanese ceramics before moving to the USA in 1994. He received his MFA from Alfred University in 1997 and is cu...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Ceramic, Wood

Abstract sculptures for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Abstract 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 sculptures created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, red, purple, green and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Scott Troxel, John Van Alstine, Marty Mackenzie, and Stephen Walling. Frequently made by artists working with Wood, and Paint and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Abstract sculptures, so small editions measuring 0.38 inches across are also available. Prices for 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 $11 and tops out at $1,400,000, while the average work sells for $4,500.