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Expressionist Art

EXPRESSIONIST STYLE

While “expressionist” is used to describe any art that avoids naturalism and instead employs a bold use of flattened forms and intense brushwork, Expressionist art formally describes early-20th-century work from Europe that drew on Symbolism and confronted issues such as urbanization and capitalism. Expressionist artists experimented in paintings and prints with skewed perspectives, abstraction and unconventional, bright colors to portray how isolating and anxious the world felt rather than how it appeared. 

Between 1905 and 1920, Austrian and German artists, in particular, were inspired by Postimpressionists such as Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh in their efforts to strive for a new authenticity in their work. In its geometric patterns and decorative details, Expressionist art was also marked by eclectic sources like German and Russian folk art as well as tribal art from Africa and Oceania, which the movement’s practitioners witnessed at museums and world’s fairs.

Groups of artists came together to share and promote the themes now associated with Expressionism, such as Die Brücke (The Bridge) in Dresden, which included Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and investigated alienation and the dissolution of society in vivid color. In Munich, Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a group led by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, instilled Expressionism with a search for spiritual truths. In his iconic painting The Scream, prolific Norwegian painter Edvard Munch conveyed emotional turmoil through his depiction of environmental elements, such as the threatening sky.

Expressionism shifted around the outbreak of World War I, with artists using more elements of the grotesque in reaction to the escalation of unrest and violence. Printmaking was especially popular, as it allowed artists to widely disseminate works that grappled with social and political issues amid this time of upheaval. Although the art movement ended with the rise of Nazi Germany, where Expressionist creators were labeled “degenerate,” the radical ideas of these artists would influence Neo-Expressionism that emerged in the late 1970s with painters like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente.

​​Find a collection of authentic Expressionist paintings, sculptures, prints and more art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Expressionist
Period: 1950s
PROFIL DE FEMME
Located in Aventura, FL
Original pencil and crayon drawing on paper. Hand signed and dated on front by the artist. Visible image size 25.6 x 19.7 in. Frame size approx 32.25 x 27 in. Artwork is in excellen...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Crayon, Pencil, Paper

Hampton Bays, Watercolor by Eve Nethercott
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Eve Nethercott, American (1925 - 2015) Title: Hampton Bays (P6.24) Year: 1958 Medium: Watercolor on Paper Size: 22 x 30 in. (55.88 x 76.2 cm)
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Watercolor

'Ponies Dancing' California Post-Impressionist, San Francisco Art Association
By Clement Samuel Wilenchick
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower left, 'Wilenchick' for Clement Samuel Wilenchick (American, 1900-1957) and painted circa 1955. A dynamic, post-impressionist oil showing horses frolicking together agai...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Acrylic, Board

Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Crown, Double-sided Watercolor by Eve Nethercott
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Eve Nethercott, American (1925 - ) Title: Portrait of a Girl wearing a Crown (P6.35) Year: 1957 Medium: Double-Sided Watercolor on Paper Size: 22 x 15 in. (55.88 x 38.1 cm)
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Watercolor

The Vampire
Located in Chicago, IL
Walter Schnackenberg’s style changed several times during his long and successful career. Having studied in Munich, the artist traveled often to Paris where he fell under the spell of the Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s colorful and sensuous posters depicting theatrical and decadent subjects. Schnackenberg became a regular contributor of similar compositions to the German magazines Jugend and Simplicissimus before devoting himself to the design of stage scenery and costumes. In the artist’s theatrical work, his mastery of form, ornamentation, and Orientalism became increasingly evident. He excelled at combining fluid Art...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Watercolor, Ink

Self Portrait, Woodcut by Leonard Baskin 1956
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Leonard Baskin Title: Self Portrait - "L.B. AE T. S" Year: 1956 Medium: Woodcut, Signed and Numbered in pencil Edition: 150 Size: 35.5 x 24 inches
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Woodcut

'Coastline', Expressionist California Landscape, San Francisco Woman Artist
By Alice Beamish
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
A dramatic, Expressionist Coastal landscape showing a view of white-capped jade green breakers crashing against a rocky shoreline, with a distant mountain painted in shades of scarlet, slate blue, and indigo rising in the background. Signed lower right, "Beamish", titled verso and painted circa 1960. Provenance: The Vincent Price Collection...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Mexican Interior Scene Scene with Figures and Fish" Expressionistic Style
Located in New York, NY
A strong modernist oil painting depicted in the Mid Century by Russian painter Michael Baxte. Mostly known for his abstracted figures on canvas or street scenes, this piece is a wond...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Oil, Masonite

"Bee Keeper, " Black Conte Crayon Drawing signed by Sylvia Spicuzza
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Bee Keeper" is an original black conte crayon drawing by Sylvia Spicuzza. The artist signed this piece lower right. This drawing depicts abstrac...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Conté

Nu, mains dans ses cheveux (Nude, Hands in Her Hair)
Located in Chicago, IL
Signed and dated, upper right Provenance: Atelier of the artist
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Ink, Paper

"Fir Tree, " Original Color Silkscreen signed by Ruth Grotenrath
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Fir Tree" (Artist's #1516) is an original color silkscreen by Ruth Grotenrath. The artist signed the piece with her initials lower left. This artwork depicts a white fir tree branch in white on red. 4 1/4" x 5 3/8" art 12" x 13" frame "The paintings of Ruth...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Screen

Portrait of a Man
By Emmanuel Mane-Katz
Located in Long Island City, NY
An oil painting by Emmanuel Mane-Katz circa 1950. An expressionist style portrait of a man with a forlorn expression in dark gray and red tones. A...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Oil, Board

"Conquistador" Portrait Lithograph by Richard Proctor
Located in Pasadena, CA
Richard Proctor (1936-2022) was a prolific and versatile artist who produced various works, including written and pictorial experiments. He received a Bachelor of Science in Art Ed...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Yellow Clown
Located in New York, NY
Bernard Lorjou has painting this subject "Harlequins" many times in watercolors, drawing , oil paintings and later on in the late 60's in acrylic, both on canvas, paper and some on m...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Oil

Vintage Mid-Century Modern Swedish Oil Painting -Portrait in an Interior, Framed
Located in Bristol, GB
PORTRAIT IN AN INTERIOR Size: 57 x 49.5 cm (including frame) Oil on board A beautifully executed and subtle mid century modernist portrait, executed in oil onto board. This semi-ab...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Girl & Plants Enamel Glazed Ceramic Plaque Israeli Artist Awret Naive Folk Art
Located in Surfside, FL
This is a rare ceramic plaque painted with enamel glaze by famed Israeli German artist Irene Awret (these are generally hand signed Awret Safed on the verso. I just have not opened the frame to check) the actual glazed ceramic is 10.25 X 14.75 inches. It depicts a girl or woman with potted plants, birds, pomegranates and other fruits and flowers in a naif, folk art style. Irène Awret was born to a Jewish family in Berlin called Spicker, the youngest of three children. Her mother died in 1927, when Irène was six years old. In 1937 she was forced to stop high school, due to the Nazi race laws. Because she could not continue her regular studies, her father sent her to study drawing, painting and art restoration with a Jewish painter. Among his students were a large number of German Jews who knew they would have to leave Germany within a short time and would require a profession to enable them to support themselves. When the situation grew worse, following the Kristallnacht (the first major attack on German and Austrian Jews in November 1938), her uncle decided to move to Belgium. In 1939 the situation became even worse - her father was fired from his job and the family were forced to leave their home. As a result, Awret's father tried to send her and her sister to Belgium, with the help of smugglers. The first smuggler proved to be a double agent and they were sent back from Aachen to Berlin. Two weeks later they made a second, successful, attempt to sneak across the border. Awret worked for a Dutch Jewish family as a maid. As she had her room and board there, she was able to save enough money to study art part-time at Brussels' Académie Royal des Beaux-Arts. A few months later Awret's father joined her and her financial situation became easier. She left her job and studied full-time, helping support herself with restoration work when it was available and by painting portraits to order. Later, Awret found a hiding place on a farm in Waterloo with a Jewish family who were connected with the underground. In January 1943 she had to return to Brussels, living with a false identity card which stated she was a married woman with two children. Awret succeeded in renting an attic without informing the police where she was - she told her landlady that she had been forced to flee her husband because he beat her. While there, she supported herself by restoring wooden sculptures. A Jewish informer gave her up to the Gestapo, accompanying the two Gestapo men who arrested her. Awret was able to take a bag containing food and drawing materials. She was detained in the Gestapo cellars in Brussels where she drew. Because there was nothing there to draw, she sketched her own hand (view this work). Awret was interrogated in order to reveal the hiding place of her father who was still in Brussels. The National Socialist regime was determined to persecute him, even though he had fought for Germany in World War I and been permanently disabled. They stepped up their torture and brought Awret before Hartmann, the head of the Gestapo in Brussels. When Hartmann saw her block of drawings, he asked her where she had studied art and halted the interrogation. Awret was placed in a narrow cell and then transferred to Malines camp, which the Belgian's called Mechelen. Malines was a transit camp to Auschwitz, regularly sending 2000 people at a time. Although she arrived just before Transport No. 20, Irène Awret avoided being included. Instead she was put to work in the leather workshop, decorating broaches. While she was there, Hartmann visited the camp and spotted her: "I could have discovered where your father is hiding," he told her. When her artistic talents became known, she was transferred to the Mahlerstube (artist's workshop) where she worked producing graphics for the Germans until the end of the war. When Carol (Karel) Deutsch (whose works are now on view at Yad Vashem) was sent from Mechelen to his death with his wife, he left young Irene his paintbox. Irene also recalls seeing the great painter Felix Nussbaum and his wife being pushed into a boxcar bound for the gas, and tells of the aftermath of the famous 20th Train incident, when a young Jewish doctor armed only with a pistol and helped by two unarmed friends with a lantern ambushed one of Mechelen's Auschwitz-bound trains carrying 1,618 Jews, most of whom had fled Eastern Europe for Belgium. Awret's job enabled her to paint and draw - mainly in pencil, but also in watercolors and oils. In the artists' workshop she met a Jewish refugee from Poland - Azriel Awret - who would later become her husband. Among the other artists in the workshop were Herbert von Ledermann-Vütemberg, a sculptor from an aristocratic family with Jewish roots, Léon Landau, and Smilowitz, who perished in the camps in the East. Irène and Azriel tried to bribe a German officer to prevent Smilowitz's deportation. Not only were they unsuccessful, but they were almost put onto the same train. Jacques Ochs was another artist with whom they became friends in the camp. Ochs, a French-born Protestant who lived in Belgium, was interned as a political prisoner. He remained in Belgium after liberation. After the war the Awrets immigrated to Israel and made their home in Safed. They continued to work, and were instrumental in founding Safed's artists' quarter. The Beit Lohamei Haghetaot (Ghetto Fighters' House Museum) art collection holds works donated by Awret. These date from her time in Malines camp and from her stay in Brussels after the war, when she was in the company of orphans who had hidden while their parents were sent to Auschwitz. Her highly expressive works have made their way to exhibitions at theTel Aviv Museum, the Haifa Museum of Modern Art and the Modern Art Gallery in Washington, D.C., as well as into the private collections of such individuals as Dr. Jonas Salk...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Enamel

Untitled (Still Life)
Located in New York, NY
This refined and sophisticated still life painting was realized in Italy, circa 1950, by the esteemed Italian artist Romano Campagnoli. Executed in oil paint on canvas, the still lif...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Still life with duck and bouquet on table top
Located in New York, NY
This painting was completed at his home in the South of France between 1953-1955. There is no in painting, relining or cracks in the paiting and original stretcher.
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Oil

L'HOMME QUI MARCHE (WALKING MAN)
Located in Aventura, FL
Hand signed and numbered in pencil. Edition of 200 on Arches. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certificate of Authenticity is included. Additional images are available upon request...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph, Paper

Girl & Rooster Enamel Glazed Ceramic Plaque Israeli Artist Awret Naive Folk Art
Located in Surfside, FL
This is a rare ceramic plaque painted with enamel glaze by famed Israeli German artist Irene Awret is signed Awret Safed on the verso. the actual glazed ceramic is 10X15 inches. Irène Awret was born to a Jewish family in Berlin called Spicker, the youngest of three children. Her mother died in 1927, when Irène was six years old. In 1937 she was forced to stop high school, due to the Nazi race laws. Because she could not continue her regular studies, her father sent her to study drawing, painting and art restoration with a Jewish painter. Among his students were a large number of German Jews who knew they would have to leave Germany within a short time and would require a profession to enable them to support themselves. When the situation grew worse, following the Kristallnacht (the first major attack on German and Austrian Jews in November 1938), her uncle decided to move to Belgium. In 1939 the situation became even worse - her father was fired from his job and the family were forced to leave their home. As a result, Awret's father tried to send her and her sister to Belgium, with the help of smugglers. The first smuggler proved to be a double agent and they were sent back from Aachen to Berlin. Two weeks later they made a second, successful, attempt to sneak across the border. Awret worked for a Dutch Jewish family as a maid. As she had her room and board there, she was able to save enough money to study art part-time at Brussels' Académie Royal des Beaux-Arts. A few months later Awret's father joined her and her financial situation became easier. She left her job and studied full-time, helping support herself with restoration work when it was available and by painting portraits to order. Later, Awret found a hiding place on a farm in Waterloo with a Jewish family who were connected with the underground. In January 1943 she had to return to Brussels, living with a false identity card which stated she was a married woman with two children. Awret succeeded in renting an attic without informing the police where she was - she told her landlady that she had been forced to flee her husband because he beat her. While there, she supported herself by restoring wooden sculptures. A Jewish informer gave her up to the Gestapo, accompanying the two Gestapo men who arrested her. Awret was able to take a bag containing food and drawing materials. She was detained in the Gestapo cellars in Brussels where she drew. Because there was nothing there to draw, she sketched her own hand (view this work). Awret was interrogated in order to reveal the hiding place of her father who was still in Brussels. The National Socialist regime was determined to persecute him, even though he had fought for Germany in World War I and been permanently disabled. They stepped up their torture and brought Awret before Hartmann, the head of the Gestapo in Brussels. When Hartmann saw her block of drawings, he asked her where she had studied art and halted the interrogation. Awret was placed in a narrow cell and then transferred to Malines camp, which the Belgian's called Mechelen. Malines was a transit camp to Auschwitz, regularly sending 2000 people at a time. Although she arrived just before Transport No. 20, Irène Awret avoided being included. Instead she was put to work in the leather workshop, decorating broaches. While she was there, Hartmann visited the camp and spotted her: "I could have discovered where your father is hiding," he told her. When her artistic talents became known, she was transferred to the Mahlerstube (artist's workshop) where she worked producing graphics for the Germans until the end of the war. When Carol (Karel) Deutsch (whose works are now on view at Yad Vashem) was sent from Mechelen to his death with his wife, he left young Irene his paintbox. Irene also recalls seeing the great painter Felix Nussbaum and his wife being pushed into a boxcar bound for the gas, and tells of the aftermath of the famous 20th Train incident, when a young Jewish doctor armed only with a pistol and helped by two unarmed friends with a lantern ambushed one of Mechelen's Auschwitz-bound trains carrying 1,618 Jews, most of whom had fled Eastern Europe for Belgium. Awret's job enabled her to paint and draw - mainly in pencil, but also in watercolors and oils. In the artists' workshop she met a Jewish refugee from Poland - Azriel Awret...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Enamel

Steinhardt Woodcut Marian Anderson Signed African American, Israeli Bezalel Art
Located in Surfside, FL
Portrait in black and white, woodblock print. Pencil signed by both Jacob Steinhardt 1887-1968 and Marian Anderson. Very rare thus. (Commissioned by ...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Woodcut

The Artist In His Atelier, Mid Century, Ecole De Nice
Located in Cotignac, FR
French Mid Century work on card by Sylvain Vigny. Depicting an artist (self portrait?) in his studio with his subject and muses, like Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Reminiscent of the drawings of Picasso and Matisse who were his contemporaries and neighbours on the Cote D'Azur at this period. The painting is signed and dated bottom left. In period chrome edged frame, currently under glass. If Sylvain Vigny had stayed in Paris in 1934 instead of moving to Nice on the Côte d’Azur, his highly imaginative and original work might be better known. Comparisons with better-known modernist artists including Maurice de Vlaminck, Georges Rouault and Raoul Dufy set him in an appropriate and favourable context. A self-taught artist, he grew up in Vienna and emigrated to France in the 1920s, living in Paris from 1929 to 1934. After he had moved to Nice early in 1934, he exhibited in galleries along the Mediterranean coast and in Switzerland, with major exhibitions in New York in 1938 and at the Galerie Bernheim Jeune in Paris in 1948. Sylvain Vigny was part of an important artistic community in Nice, which included Jean Moulin who owned the Galerie d’Art Roman, the artist Jean Cassarini, writers Pierre and Jacques Prévert, filmmaker Nikos Papatakis, and jazz musician Django Reinhardt...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Ink, Watercolor, Gouache, Cardboard

"The Card Players" Interior Scene, Card Players, African-American, Intense Color
Located in Detroit, MI
"The Card Players" is an extraordinarily rare and early painting of Alvin Demar Loving, a major artist in the lexicon of 20th century African-American artists. This piece has just re...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Crystal Ball
Located in West Hollywood, CA
Noted German Expressionist artist Fritz Schwaderer(1901-1974), , was classically schooled in fine art in Germany in the early-mid 1920as. ...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Oil

Midnight in Paris
Located in West Hollywood, CA
Just discovered, a rare, original oil painting, "Midnight in Paris", by American artist Robert McIntosh(1916-2010) McIntosh was extremely prolif...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Oil

The Orchestra
Located in West Hollywood, CA
Jirayr Zorthian(1911-2004), went through two Turkish massacres before age eight. He left Turkey at age nine with his family and spent a year in Padua, Italy, waiting for his visa to open to the United States. This period was very important in his life because his father took him to many cities in Europe and exposed him to great works of art. Zorthian arrived in the United States at the age of eleven and settled with his family in New Haven, Connecticut. He obtained his formal education there, after graduating from Yale in 1932, the Winchester Fellowship granted him a year and a half at the American Academy in Rome with travel and study throughout Europe. His art career branched into various directions on his return to the United States. As a mural painter his reputation was established. He has forty two (42) murals throughout the United States. Zorthian worked and taught painting at some of the finest art academies on the west coast including both the Chouinard Art Institute and the Otis Art Institute. "The Orchestra...
Category

1950s Expressionist Art

Materials

Watercolor

Expressionist art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Expressionist 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 orange, blue, purple, green and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Iryna Kastsova, George Grosz, Stephen Basso, and Marc Chagall. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Oil 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 Expressionist art, so small editions measuring 1 inches across are also available.

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