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Contemporary Art

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
View of Venice - Drawing by Carlo Ravagnan - 1970s
Located in Roma, IT
Watercolor on heavy paper realized by Carlo Ravagnan in 1970s. Hand signed and dated lower right. Excellent condition. Carlo Ravagnan was born in Udine on September 4, 1911, died ...
Category

1970s Contemporary Art

Materials

Watercolor

Spring Collection: Snowdrop 5 with Oil Paint, Painting by Dani Humberstone
Located in Deddington, GB
Spring Collection: Snowdrop 5 is an original oil painting by Dani Humberstone as part of her Pocket Painting series featuring small scale realistic oil paintings, with a nod to baroq...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Boulder #4 - Rock-like bronze sculpture, smooth, bright surface, dark tone
Located in Paris, FR
Boulder #4 is a sculpture by English artist Tom Price. This artwork can be customized— feel free to contact us for a quote. Tom Price’s artistic approach focuses on material explora...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Bronze

Engulfment - Cartagena 4 and Mosquera 5, Diptych. Nude color photographs
Located in Miami Beach, FL
The first encounter I had with the abyss, was arriving to a place that does not exist, a point suspended in time where I am without being. An unreal world expands in front of me, eve...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Color, Archival Pigment

Dark Hedges, Ireland, Tree Avenue, Monochrome, Limited Edition Photo, 40x40cm
Located in Vienna, Vienna
Black and white fine art minimalist landscape photography. The dark hedges, mystical avenue of trees in north Ireland. Archival pigment ink print, edition ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Pigment

Geometries - Screen Print by Luigi Montanarini - 1970s
Located in Roma, IT
Image dimensions: 50 x 46 cm. Geometries is a beautiful colored serigraph on cream-colored paper, realized in the 1970's by the Italian artist, Luigi Montanarini (1906-1998) and pub...
Category

1970s Contemporary Art

Materials

Screen

Guardain Cat by Helle Crawford, Contemporary bronze cat animal sculpture
Located in DE
Even though Helle Rask Crawford often refers to classic myths in her sculptures, sh is not a classical sculptor in the neoclassical sense. Rather, Helle Crawford could be defined as ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Bronze, Gold

"SASSY" Floral Typography with Hand-Cut and Layered Paper
Located in Philadelphia, PA
"SASSY" is an original wall-hanging sculpture by Charles Clary as part of the artist's popular "Text-i-monial" series. To create the artwork, Clary hand cuts a series of individual s...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper, Wood Panel

Reloj Astrologico (rare signed bronze sculpture)
Located in Aventura, FL
Bronze sculpture. Incised Pedro Friedberg on the base. Incised PA (artist proof) on the base. Certificate of Authenticity is included. Artwork is in excellent condition. All re...
Category

Late 20th Century Contemporary Art

Materials

Bronze

Hunt Slonem "Midas" Gold Bunny
Located in Boston, MA
Artist: Slonem, Hunt Title: Midas Date: 2024 Medium: Oil on Wood Unframed Dimensions: 10" x 8" Framed Dimensions: 14.5" x 12.5" Signature: Signed Verso Edition: Unique Provena...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil

Amancio pool. gold and black bronze. iron. PRIMERA PIEDRA original sculpture
Located in CORAL GABLES - MIAMI, FL
Sculpture by the Spanish artist AMANCIO GONZALEZ 7 COPIES Fantastic piece of art representing Spanish sculpture Amancio González is a sculptor from Leon and an internationally celebr...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Iron, Bronze

Collection from Fruits and Flowers II & III
Located in New York, NY
Donald Sultan Fruits and Flowers II and III Lemon, Apricots and Pears; Yellow Roses; and Lilies from Fruits and Flowers II 65/125 Yellow Peppers; Pomegranates; Acanthus; Five Lemon...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Screen

Tree of Life - Original Abstract Vibrant Colorful Geometric Shape Painting
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Designs, shapes, and colors find a balance between a polite instinct and a domesticated confusion within the cubist-inspired artworks by Tuscan artist Federico Pinto Schmid. Partiall...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Blue Side
Located in Denver, CO
Hunt Slonem's artistic trajectory has always been characterized by a deep exploration of spiritual themes. His use of repetition in form—particularly with his beloved bunnies—serves ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil, Wood

White Lotus 10
Located in Calabasas, CA
Artist: Alex Katz Title: White Lotus 10 Year: 2023 Medium: Archival pigment inks on 315 gsm fine art paper Edition: 50; signed and numbered in pencil Sheet: 32 × 48 in (81.3 × 121....
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Pigment

Sisters, Atelier
Located in Laguna Beach, CA
"Sisters, Atelier" by Richard MacDonald captures a radiant moment of connection between two female figures, posed in joyful harmony. Their mirrored gestures and flowing lines suggest...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Bronze

"Alegria II" contemporary bronze table, mural sculpture figurative girl yoga
Located in Kowloon, Hong Kong
Alegria II is a bronze sculpture with black patina, it is connected to a steel base. The edition size is 25. This sculpture stands on shelf as well as be hung on wall. Joan wants to ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Bronze, Steel

Fotografia dell'Assenza - Vintage Poster After Luigi Ghirri - 1976
Located in Roma, IT
Original vintage poster of the exhibition of the italian photographer Luigi Ghirri (1943-1992) held in Rome, Galleria Rondanini, in 1976. Offset print, in excellent conditions, publ...
Category

1970s Contemporary Art

Materials

Offset

Ruben. From Searching a Mother Series. Photomontage
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Castro’s labor-intensive, photo-collage works of drug kingpins, smugglers, hitmen, countrymen, street vendors, soldiers, paramilitaries, kidnappers, and pimps pose showing with pride...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, Archival Paper, Color

Nightfall, Acrylic & oil landscape painting, signed, framed, Museum provenance
Located in New York, NY
Thelma Appel Nightfall, 1973 Acrylic and Oil on Canvas. Hand Signed. Framed. Hand signed and titled on the back Unique Frame included Museum Provenance. This work was originally sold in 1973 by the prestigious Jill Kornblee Gallery to a corporate collection, and, in 2019, it was featured in the Thelma Appel 50 year career survey at the Brattleboro Museum in Vermont – so the provenance is superb. It is reproduced in the exhibition catalogue. The collector who acquires this beautiful painting will be furnished with several copies of the limited edition museum catalogue Measurements: Framed 38.5 x 89.5 inches Artwork 36.5 x 87.5 inches Thelma Appel Biography: A co-founder of the Bennington College Summer Painting Workshop, Thelma Appel is a representational and abstract painter who has been practicing art for more than six and a half decades. In the 1980s, Thelma Appel was represented by the renowned Jill Kornblee Gallery and, after Ms. Kornblee retired, Appel joined the legendary Fischbach Gallery, (the gallery of record for Alex Katz for many decades,) also on West 57th Street, before they shuttered. After leaving Manhattan, she retreated from the art world for several decades; however, in recent years, her work is being rediscovered by a generation of new collectors. A beloved and popular teacher, at 87 years of age, Thelma could still be found teaching “The Art of Painting” at Artsplace in Cheshire, CT. and at the Osher Life Long Learning Institute (OLLI) At the University of Connecticut, near her home during the 2024-5 Fall/Winter Semester. In 2019, she was subject of a 50-year career survey (October, 2019 -February 2020) at the Brattleboro Museum in Vermont, entitled Thelma Appel: Abstract/Observed curated by Mara Williams. She has also exhibited at the Mattatuck Museum in Connecticut, which acquired one of her fabric collages for their permanent collection, the Bennington Museum in Vermont and the Police Museum in Lower Manhattan. Thelma Appel was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, but following her parents’ divorce, her father remained in Israel, but her mother emigrated to London to pursue a career as a journalist. However, she soon became ill, and Thelma was sent alone to be educated in a Protestant missionary schools in Darjeeling, India, a geographical displacement that would impact her life and her work. Thelma returned to London, England, to study art at the legendary St. Martin's School of Art (later Central St. Martins) and Hornsey College of Art, under such renowned teachers as Joe Tilson and Eduardo Paolozzi, before emigrating to the United States in the 1960s. Her work has been exhibited in numerous venues, including the Bennington Museum, the Berkshire Museum in North Adams, Mass., the Children's Museum of the Arts in New York City, the Mattatuck Museum, the Brattleboro Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Robert Hull Fleming Museum at the University of Vermont and the University of Pennsylvania Fine Arts Gallery. In 1974 she was awarded a YADDO Fellowship, and in 1975, Thelma Appel, along with the painter Carol Haerer, co-founded the Bennington College Summer Painting Workshop, where many distinguished painters of the day, both abstract and representational, conducted master classes. Among them were Neil Welliver, John Button, Alice Neel, Larry Poons, Friedel Dzubas, Stanley Boxer, Elizabeth Murray and Doug Ohlson – a program that continued until 1980. (One of Thelma’s students was the renowned art dealer Matthew Marks.) She has also taught drawing at Parsons School of Design, painting at Southern Vermont College and at the University of Connecticut. Appel’s work has been presented at Art on Paper, Texas Contemporary, Market Art & Design in Bridgehampton and Art New York art fair, which selected Appel’s Times Square series of paintings for their invitational public Project Space sponsored by Absolut Vodka. She was one of the winning artists of the juried exhibition “Pets of the Pandemic” juried by art historian and critic David Cohen, publisher and editor of artcritical, who cited it for special commendation as a “masterful portrait”. In recent years, Thelma’s work has been exhibited in both one-person and group shows at Alpha 137 Gallery in New York, Sager Reeves (now Sager Braudis) Gallery in Missouri, the Chashama Foundation in New York City, as well as the Five Points Gallery and Center for the Visual Arts in Torrington Connecticut, the David M. Hunt Gallery in Falls Village, CT and Wisdom House in Litchfield Ct...
Category

1970s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

Blue Barn Green Field - landscape, Canadian, contemporary, acrylic on canvas
Located in Bloomfield, ON
For Canada’s beloved pop artist, Charles Pachter, the barn reimagined in graphic form is a reminder of Canada’s early rural history and the pioneers that helped shape this country. T...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

I Want to Sing My Heart in Praise of People
Located in Washington , DC, DC
Extremely rare exhibition poster printed on medium thick paper. It was released by the Matsumoto City Museum of Art in Japan with text on the ve...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Lithograph, Offset

Prehension - modern, geometric, abstract, Corten steel outdoor sculpture
Located in Bloomfield, ON
This modern outdoor sculpture was forged from steel by a Quebec artist. Quebec artist Claude Millette has been creating uniquely compelling sculptures for more than four decades. ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Steel

Carlos. From Searching a Mother Series. Photomontage
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Castro’s labor-intensive, photo-collage works of drug kingpins, smugglers, hitmen, countrymen, street vendors, soldiers, paramilitaries, kidnappers, and pimps pose showing with pride...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

Something (Till Death do us Part) - 21st Century, Polaroid, Figurative
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Something (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 40x40cm, Edition of 10. Archival C- Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. Artist inventory number: 9445. Not mou...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

"Dripping Dots - The Maldives" Jewel Toned Contemporary Oil Painting on Canvas
Located in New York, NY
With layers of bright oils and whisking brush strokes, the paint is able to shine and shimmer in a very unique pattern. The artist uses gold flakes with thick textured oils and glass...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Gold Leaf

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 Art

Materials

Lithograph

Flower Machine - Flowers in Vase Surreal Botanical Still Life Red Pink, 2023
Located in Kent, CT
A futuristic botanical hybrid is the focus of this contemporary fantastical landscape in acrylic ink on canvas by Peter Hamlin. The meticulously detailed flower is whimsical and surr...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Come as you are - Contemporary, Portrait, Women, Polaroid, Nude
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Come as you are - 2020 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate. Artist inventory - PL2020-...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

"Wild Dreams" Contemporary Painting Oil On Linen Framed
Located in Baltimore, MD
"Wild Dreams" is a framed oil on linen painting by Geoffrey Gersten featuring a stylized, hyper-realistic depiction of a woman in a vibrant blue swimsuit with multicolored ruffles, s...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Linen, Paint, Oil

"Zentai Peace Suit" Framed acrylic, dimensional paint, lycra, foam on velvet
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This piece titled "Zentai Peace Suit" is an original artwork by PJ Linden and is made from acrylic, dimensional paint, lycra, and foam on velvet. This piece measures 31”h x 24.75”w x...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Textile, Foam, Paint, Acrylic

Pocket Juicy Plum with Oil Paint on Canvas, Painting by Dani Humberstone
Located in Deddington, GB
Pocket Juicy Plum is an original oil painting by Dani Humberstone as part of her Pocket Painting series featuring small scale realistic oil paintings, with a nod to baroque still lif...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas

1540 and 2877, Diptych. From The ONE Series
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Although photography remains Arnone's primary form of expression, the artist begins to see certain limitations in this medium when it comes to adequately depicting his altered and of...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper, Pastel, Mixed Media, Archival Pigment

Breathe Slowly/4
Located in Zofingen, AG
Breathe Slowly/4 by Helen Mount is an expressive reflection of the tranquility and vastness of nature, which encourages us to slow down and appreciate the beauty of our surroundings. The painting depicts a majestic landscape...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Acrylic

Breathe Slowly/4
Breathe Slowly/4
$955 Sale Price
20% Off
Light Hold - Abstract Pale Lilac Peach Pastel Mint Gradient Stripes, 2020
Located in Kent, CT
In this contemporary abstract painting in flashe on canvas, thin stripes of color in gradient shades of soft hues, starting with lilac and pale purple in the center to pale peach and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Vinyl

Abstracted Figure, Homage to Cezzanne's Card Player by America Martin
Located in Laguna Beach, CA
America Martin "Homage to Cezzanne's Card Players Men with Words Hats and Cards" Oil & Acrylic on Canvas 60 x 70 Inches 61.5 x 71.5 In Framed Signed painting by America Martin. Ex...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

Rocky Peaks, shoreline, Atlantic Ocean, mono landscape photography print
Located in Vienna, Vienna
Rocky Peaks Panorama Study 2, Spain - no. 21192 • Black and white fine art long exposure waterscape photography. Pigment ink print as part of a limited edition of 8. Art Prints are ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Digital Pigment, Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

3499 - Analogue black and white female portrait
Located in London, GB
'3499' Photograph printed on heavyweight fine art paper, signed and stamped at the bottom righthand corner and at the back. Photograph comes with a certificate of authenticity. Li...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Film, Giclée, Archival Paper, Film

Community Strength - Original Colorful Abstract Street Art Painting
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles artist Amber Goldhammer paints dramatic abstract compositions in acrylic on canvas featuring energetic brushstrokes. Goldhammer uses her contemporary paintings to express...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Latex, Mixed Media, Spray Paint, Acrylic

Hunt Slonem "Troy" Bunny
Located in Boston, MA
Artist: Slonem, Hunt Title: Troy Date: 2024 Medium: Oil on Wood Unframed Dimensions: 10" x 8" Framed Dimensions: 14.5" x 12.5" Signature: Signed Verso Edition: Unique Provenan...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil

Ariane Wyss 'Facades of New York City' 1982- Serigraph- Vintage
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Among Wyss's notable works is the 1982 silkscreen poster titled "Facades of New York City," published by Modernart Editions for Art Expo 1982. This serigraph features stylized depic...
Category

1980s Contemporary Art

Materials

Screen

Girls (Till Death do us Part) - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Girls (Till Death do us Part) - 2005, 24x20cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print print, based on an original expired Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No....
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Hunt Slonem "Azure Sky Bunnies" Bunnies, Butterflies
Located in Boston, MA
Artist: Slonem, Hunt Title: Azure Sky Bunnies Series: Bunnies Date: 2025 Medium: Lithograph on Paper Unframed Dimensions: 16" x 24" Framed Dimensions: 22" x 29" x 1.25" Signat...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Lithograph

Aeris Tarim Noire - Large Black and White Original Three-Dimensional Wall Art
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Atticus Adams' organically composed modern metal sculptures embody the transformative power of contemporary art, illustrating the creation of beauty, meaning, and emotional impact fr...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Metal, Wire

An insipid notion (Triptych) Abstract nude color photograph
Located in Miami Beach, FL
An insipid notion (The astonished world) is a collection of unreal experiences caused by the feeling of late and inexperienced love, and the inability to fully know the experience of...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Color, Archival Pigment

Lobster Girl, Fright Nights, West Palm Beach - Dye Sublimation Print, 2017
Located in Brighton, GB
Please bear in mind that all prints are produced to order and lead times are between 15-20 days. All prints include VAT and are sold as print only. This print may be available in another size, please contact the gallery for more information. "Lobster Girl. Fright Nights, West Palm Beach...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, Dye, Color

Stars 7, 2015 - Stars and Trees in Ancient English Woodland Forest Landscape
Located in Brighton, GB
Stars 7, 2015 - Stars and Trees in Ancient English Woodland Forest Landscape by Ellie Davies Stars 7 by Ellie Davies is a stunning Digital C-Type Print on Fuji Maxima Matte paper, a...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, Digital, C Print

Untitled (Nude Man with Cigarette)
Located in New York, NY
This photograph by Jack Pierson is offered by CLAMP in New York City. Printed 2018 Artist signature stamp in black ink, verso; Also dated 2018, verso Chromogenic print 11 x 7 inches
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

C Print

Cityscape, Original Oil Paint, Architecture Painting by Marilina Marchica
Located in Agrigento, AG
Cityscape oil on canvas 20x40 cm Original Art By Marilina Marchica stretched on a wooden frame signed on the back with certificate of authenticity
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Untitled (Pulse) Abstract print limited edition Julie Mehretu Lithograph
Located in Bristol, GB
Lithograph in colours on wove paper Edition 24 of 100 56 x 65 cm (22 x 25.6 in) Signed, numbered and dated on the front Mint Framed under Perspex in a silver painted dark wooden frame
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Lithograph

First Kiss (Till Death do us Part)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
First Kiss (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x24cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory ...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Archetypes-The Mother, Maiden, Queen, Huntress, Wise Woman, Mystic, Oil Painting
Located in Chicago, IL
Symbols abound in this monumental painting by Bruno Surdo. Each of the subjects on this canvas is dependent upon the other. They require the presence of the others for balance and ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Black Stone Beach, Madeira, Portugal, monochrome seascape photograph, limited
Located in Vienna, Vienna
Black and white fine art long exposure waterscape - landscape photography. Big black stones on the shore in madeira, Portugal. Archival pigment ink print as part of a limited edition...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Pigment

Hunt Slonem "White Bunnies III" Lithograph
Located in Boston, MA
Artist: Slonem, Hunt Title: White Bunnies III Series: Bunnies Date: 2017 Medium: Lithograph on Paper Unframed Dimensions: 16" x 24" Framed Dimensions: 22" x 29" x 1.25" Signat...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Lithograph

No One is Happier than Me
Located in London, GB
11 Colour Screenprint on Somerset Tub Sized 410gsm Paper
 hand-signed and numbered 76 x 56 cm Edition 77 of 125
 published by Jealous Gallery and comes with publisher COA David Shri...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Screen

Home V - Woman With A Dog - Modern Figurative Nature and Landscape Drawing
Located in Salzburg, AT
The artwork is in simple white frames behind plexi. The full signature is on the back of the drawing, on the front is a dated monogram. Hanna Banaszczyk is a graduate of the Facul...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper, Ink, Pencil

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 Art

Materials

Woodcut

Silver and Color No. 168
Located in Westport, CT
This beautiful blue painting is by Japanese artist, Takefumi Hori. He was born in Tokyo, Japan. He paints beautiful gold leaf paintings. This piece is acrylic, gold leaf and metal leaf on canvas. The artist studied calligraphy in Japan. In 2004 he moved to New York where he began painting abstract works of acrylic on canvas. Since 2009, Takefumi has been making gold and colored abstract works. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn where he is surrounded by the hustle and bustle of everyday urban life. The energy of New York City is an inspiration. His use of gold as a main material came about after long and intensive experiments. His compositional forms such as circles, squares and rectangles are ideal forms for gold to work with other colors in his work. The compositions of these elements are based on his experience with Japanese calligraphy. He merges the traditions of Eastern and Western art. His works are in numerous collections including Tiffany and Co., Claridges Hotel...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Silver

Lorenzo 1, 3 and 4 Triptych. From the Series Guerreros. Photomontage
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Lorenzo 1, 3 and 4 Triptych by Celso José Castro Daza From the Series Guerreros. Photomontage on archival paper intervened by the artist with bland ink mounted on archival paper. Ove...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, Archival Paper

Russian Contemporary Art by Yuriy Demiyanov - Phloxes sur Rouge
Located in Paris, IDF
Oil on canvas Yuriy Demiyanov is a Russian artist born in 1964 who lives and works in Zadonsk, Russia. He is graduated from the Lipetsk State Pedagogical Institute. He frequently ex...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Contemporary art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Contemporary art 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 art 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, orange, red and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Stefanie Schneider, Tyler Shields, Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde, and Richard Heeps. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Paper 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 art, so small editions measuring 0.02 inches across are also available.

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