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Modern Art

MODERN STYLE

The first decades of the 20th century were a period of artistic upheaval, with modern art movements including Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism and Dadaism questioning centuries of traditional views of what art should be. Using abstraction, experimental forms and interdisciplinary techniques, painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers and performance artists all pushed the boundaries of creative expression.

Major exhibitions, like the 1913 Armory Show in New York City — also known as the “International Exhibition of Modern Art,” in which works like the radically angular Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp caused a sensation — challenged the perspective of viewers and critics and heralded the arrival of modern art in the United States. But the movement’s revolutionary spirit took shape in the 19th century.

The Industrial Revolution, which ushered in new technology and cultural conditions across the world, transformed art from something mostly commissioned by the wealthy or the church to work that responded to personal experiences. The Impressionist style emerged in 1860s France with artists like Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Edgar Degas quickly painting works that captured moments of light and urban life. Around the same time in England, the Pre-Raphaelites, like Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, borrowed from late medieval and early Renaissance art to imbue their art with symbolism and modern ideas of beauty.

Emerging from this disruption of the artistic status quo, modern art went further in rejecting conventions and embracing innovation. The bold legacy of leading modern artists Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian and many others continues to inform visual culture today.

Find a collection of modern paintings, sculptures, prints and other fine art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Modern
Decor pour Les Facheux (Mourlot 107), Regards sur Paris, Georges Braque
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin d’Arches paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition, with centerfold, as issued. Notes: from the folio, Regards sur Paris, 1963. Publi...
Category

1960s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Kandinsky, Tableau avec formes blanches, Derrière le miroir (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition, with centerfold, as issued. Notes: From Derrière le miroir, N° 133-134, 1962. Published by...
Category

1960s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Original Jeva de la tête aux pieds from head to toe vintage French poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original Jeva de la tête aux pieds vintage French fashion poster. Jeva would dress you from your head to your feet, and this cat implies in this poster de...
Category

1950s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

R2D2 30x40 First Release , Star Wars, Photography Pop Art, Movie, Signed
Located in Los Angeles, CA
R2D2 from the original Kenner release of the Star Wars toys in May of 1977 This is pre release is the first release in the much anticipated series "The Toys" "They encapsulate an era...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Modern Art

Materials

Archival Pigment

The Red Garden, Illustration Style in Red Tones, Wild Dandelion, Pink Leaves
Located in Barcelona, ES
"The Red Garden" is an abstract expressionist painting by Romina Milano where a dance of black gestures unfolds across colorful brushstrokes infused with raw emotion. Romina Milano...
Category

2010s Modern Art

Materials

Ink, Acrylic, Watercolor

Louis Armstrong smoking a cigarette, Berlin 1965
Located in Cologne, DE
This striking black-and-white photograph captures jazz legend Louis Armstrong during a candid moment at a press event in 1965. Armstrong is seen seated at a table, a cigarette delicately held between his fingers, as he gazes thoughtfully off to the side. His signature bow tie and formal attire reflect his polished style, while the slight smile on his lips hints at his charismatic personality. The image is framed by soft-focus floral arrangements in the foreground, which enhance the intimate setting. Microphones surround him, indicating his role as a prominent figure in the music industry. The lighting subtly highlights the contours of his face and the gleam of his watch, emphasizing the depth of character and experience in his expression. This photograph not only embodies Armstrong's iconic status but also captures the essence of his lively spirit and dedication to jazz music. About Tassilo Leher: Born in the dark years of World War II, Tassilo Leher became an icon of photographic art in divided Germany. As the son of war correspondent Karl Leher, whose lens captured moments of contemporary history, he was born in 1940 in the heart of Berlin. He shared not only the studio in the picturesque Prenzlauer Berg with his father, but also the mysterious world of the darkroom. While Karl Leher, an early riser, made use of the morning hours, Tassilo found his creative flow only by midday, often working late into the night. His camera knew no bounds: from the dazzling stars of East German show business like Phudys, Karat, Hildegard Kneef, Manfred Krug, Bubi Scholz, to international greats such as Dean Reed, Karel Gott, Jiri Korn, and Costa Cordalis – all found themselves in front of his lens. The Friedrichstadt-Palast and numerous film sets became his stages, where he played with light and shadow to perfectly frame famous...
Category

1960s Modern Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, Black and White

Early American Modernist Abstract Expressionist Figural Framed Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist abstract oil painting by Eugene Arcieri (1914 - 2005). Oil on board. Framed. Signed. Measuring 15 by 19 inches overall and 14 by 18 painting alone. In exce...
Category

1960s Modern Art

Materials

Oil, Board

"The Bather" Modern Abstract Woman in Style of Modigliani Oil Painting on Paper
Located in New York, NY
Exploring the purity of the feminine form and the drama of French haute couture, artist Cindy Shaoul creates a dialogue between the figurative and the abstract. Her spirited composit...
Category

2010s Modern Art

Materials

Oil, Archival Paper

Verbier Vacation - Limited Edition Estate Stamped Digital C-Type Print
Located in Brighton, GB
Please note that as of 1st March 2025, the Slim Aarons Estate Stamped Collection aligned its pricing across the entire collection. Please bear in mind that all prints are produced to order. Lead times are expected between 15-20 days. Currency fluctuations may cause the price to change. This is a contemporary print from the Getty Archive using Slim Aarons negatives. All prints feature a Slim Aarons blindstamp, and are accompanied by a Slim Aarons Certificate of Authentication issued by Getty. 16 x 20" print. Limited Edition Estate Stamped Print. Edition of 150. Printed Later Please note that as part of the Estate's Premium Collection...
Category

20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Digital

Jim Clark in action Lotus Zan voort Holland
Located in Denton, TX
Jim Clark in action Lotus Zan voort Holland, 1962 Gelatin silver print Paper size: 16 x 20 in. Signed in black ink on print margin by Jesse Alexander About the Artist: Jesse Alexan...
Category

20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Faces - Linocut Print by Mino Maccari - 1940s
Located in Roma, IT
Faces is a linocut realized by Mino Maccari in the 1940s. 50 x 30 cm. Handisigned in the lower right part. Edition of 12 copies. Reference; Cat. Meloni , pag 367, n.1741. Good c...
Category

1940s Modern Art

Materials

Linocut

Jewish Shtetl Shabbat Candles Russian Judaica Etching w Hand Watercolor Painting
Located in Surfside, FL
EUGENE ABESHAUS Leningrad, Russia, (1939-2008) Hand-Colored, with watercolor painting, Etching hand signed in pencil in English and Hebrew Numbered 47/110 Framed 21.5 x 16. image 13.5 x 9 Eugene Abeshaus (also spelled Evgeny Abezgauz, Евгений Абезгауз in Russian; 1939–2008) was a Jewish artist who worked in Russia (then USSR) and Israel. Born in Leningrad to a typical intelligentsia family, Abeshaus was educated as an electrical engineer but soon abandoned this career and enrolled in the Mukhina School for Applied Art. By the time of his graduation from the famous “Mukha” (Fly in Russian), he had already developed a critical stance towards the official Soviet art dominated by the Communist ideology and began exhibiting at semi-underground exhibitions. This was culminated by his taking part in a famous 1975 exhibition at the Nevsky Palace of Culture. Abeshaus was fired from his job and censured by the official press – which however admitted his "artistic taste, a good sense of color and form". Soon afterwards, Abeshaus set up, together with several Jewish artists, the Alef Group and became its leader. The group’s first exhibition in November 1975 was held at Abeshauses’ small apartment. According to the Alef Manifesto written by Alek Rapoport, “We are trying to conquer the influence of small-town Jewish art and find sources for our work in deeper, wiser, and more spiritual European culture, and from it build a bridge to today and tomorrow". He was part of a generation of Russian, mostly Jewish artist's that included Oskar Rabin, Evgeny Rukhin...
Category

20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Watercolor, Etching, Paper

Original Marine Nationale, French Navy recruitment vintage poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original poster, Marine Nationale. Engagements, devancements d'appel. Service des engagements de la Marine: 3, avenue Octave Greard, Paris VII “Bureau d'engagement, LYON, Caserne de la Part-Dieu". Archival linen backed in Grade A condition, ready to frame. Images shown are...
Category

1950s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Underwater — Mid-century Modern
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Charles Quest, 'Underwater', 1948, chiaroscuro wood engraving, edition 12. Signed, titled, dated and numbered '3/12' in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, in dark brown and warm black, on off-white wove paper, with full margins (5/8 to 1 1/2 inch), in excellent condition. Scarce. ABOUT THE ARTIST Charles Quest, painter, printmaker, and fine art instructor, worked in various mediums, including mosaic, stained glass, mural painting, and sculpture. Quest grew up in St. Louis, his talent evident as a teenager when he began copying the works of masters such as Michelangelo on his bedroom walls. He studied at the Washington University School of Fine Arts, where he later taught from 1944 to 1971. He traveled to Europe after his graduation in 1929 and studied at La Grande Chaumière and Academie Colarossi, Paris, continuing to draw inspiration from the works of the Old Masters. After returning to St. Louis, Quest received several commissions to paint murals in public buildings, schools, and churches, including one from Joseph Cardinal Ritter, to paint a replica of Velasquez's Crucifixion over the main altar of the Old Cathedral in St. Louis. Quest soon became interested in the woodcut medium, which he learned through his study of J. J. Lankes' A Woodcut Manual (1932) and Paul Landacre's articles in American Artist magazine ‘since no artists in St. Louis were working in wood’ at that time. Quest also revealed that for him, wood cutting and engraving were ‘more enjoyable than any other means of expression.’ In the late 1940s, his graphic works began attracting critical attention—several of his woodcuts won prizes and were acquired by major American and European museums. His wood engraving entitled ‘Lovers’ was included in the American Federation of Art's traveling print exhibition in 1947. Two years later, Quest's two prize-winning prints, ‘Still Life with Grindstone’ and ‘Break Forth into Singing’, were exhibited in major American museums in a traveling show organized by the Philadelphia Print Club. His work was included in the Chicago Art Institute's exhibition, ‘Woodcut Through Six Centuries’, and the print ‘Still Life with Vise’ was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1951 he was invited by artist-Curator Jacob Kainen to exhibit thirty wood engravings and color woodcuts in a one-person show at the Smithsonian's National Museum (now known as the American History Museum). Kainen's press release praised the ‘technical refinement’ of Quest's work: ‘He obtains a great variety of textural effects through the use of the graver, and these dense or transparent grays are set off against whites or blacks to achieve sparkling results. His work has the handsome qualities characteristic of the craftsman and designer.’ At the time of the Smithsonian exhibition, Quest's work was represented by three New York galleries in addition to one in his home town. He had won 38 prizes, and his prints were in the collections of the Library of Congress, the Chicago Art Institute, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In cooperation with the Art in Embassies program, his color woodcuts were displayed at the American Embassy in Paris in 1951. Recognition at home came in 1955 with his first solo exhibition in St. Louis. Press coverage of the show heralded the ‘growth of graphic arts toward rivaling painting and sculpture as a major independent medium’. An exhibition of his prints at the Bethesda Art Gallery in 1983 attracted Curator Emeritus Joseph A. Haller, S.J., who began purchasing his work for Georgetown University's collection. In 1990 Georgetown University Library's Special Collections Division was the recipient of a large body of Quest's work, including prints, drawings, paintings, sculpture, stained glass, and his archive of correspondence and professional memorabilia. These extensive holdings, including some 260 of his fine prints, provide a rich opportunity for further study and appreciation of this versatile and not-to-be-forgotten mid-Western American artist...
Category

1940s Modern Art

Materials

Woodcut

Contemporary Mid Century Inspired Blue & Green Toned Neighborhood Aerial Pastel
Located in Houston, TX
Mid century inspired aerial landscape pastel drawing by contemporary artist R. Michael Wommack. The work features a birds eye view of a planned neighborhood at night with glowing swi...
Category

2010s Modern Art

Materials

Paper, Pastel

'Tennis Legends' 1980 Silver Gelatin Print
Located in London, GB
'John McEnroe' 1981 Silver Gelatin Print by Watfiord / Mirror Group Archives. Wimbledon 3rd Day: John McEnroe. June 1981 The famous tennis star icon won at the All England Club championships that year, finally beating his long term rival Bjorn Borg...
Category

1980s Modern Art

Materials

Silver Gelatin

"Achtung Commission" Mixed Media Wall Sculpture
Located in Marmora, NJ
NOTE: This is a commission piece, made after the original. It can be commissioned in custom sizes and colors. Allow 3-4 weeks plus shipping. Achtung VI is a vibrant large-scale mi...
Category

2010s Modern Art

Materials

Plaster, Wood, Walnut, Paint

Vintage Midcentury Demitasse Coffee Set Hans Achtziger for Hutschenreuther Selb
Located in East Quogue, NY
Pristine decorative white porcelain 'Apart' coffee demitasse set from Hutschenreuther Selb, with 6 cups, 6 saucers, coffee pot, creamer/milk jug, sugar bowl (15 piece set). Germain porcelain maker Hutschenreuther (est.1814) commissioned sculptor Hans Achtziger...
Category

1950s Modern Art

Materials

Porcelain

Vintage American Modernist Nature Scape Signed Summer Landscape Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist landscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed illegibly.
Category

1970s Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Picasso, Composition (Bloch 1276; Czwiklitzer 23), Toros y Toreros (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on Arches wove paper. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Pablo Picasso, Toros y Toreros, 1961. Published by aux Éditions Cercle d'...
Category

1960s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Grand Prix Racer
Located in London, GB
'Grand Prix Racer', French School, oil on board (circa 1960s). The 'good ole' days' of Formula One racing are depicted in this thrilling mid-century...
Category

1960s Modern Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Ancient Greek Sculptures - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Ancient Greek Sculptures is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862. The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the univers...
Category

1860s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

1940s Charcoal and Pencil Portrait of a Man
Located in Arp, TX
Artist Unknown "Tie and Glasses" c. 1940s Charcoal and pencil on paper 13.5"x17" site 19"x23" rustic wood frame Unsigned
Category

1940s Modern Art

Materials

Paper, Charcoal, Carbon Pencil

Fifth Avenue Bridge.
Located in Storrs, CT
Fifth Avenue Bridge. 1928. Drypoint. McCarron 72. 9 7/8 x 12 (sheet 12 3/4 x 15). Edition of 108 recorded impressions. A rich impression printed on cream laid paper, with full margin...
Category

1920s Modern Art

Materials

Drypoint, Etching

"Alaskan Pollock II"
Located in Detroit, MI
SALE ONE WEEK ONLY This painting of four different species of fish that can be found in South Korea is from the mid-20th century Korean artist Kim Kyung. Seafood from both the seas that surround the peninsula and from its rivers are an integral part of the livelihood and cuisine of Koreans. Kim Kyung (in Hanja, 金耕, in Hangul 김경) was born in South Korea, his real name, under the current Revised Romanization was Kim Gyeong-Eun (in Hanja 金萬斗, in Hangul 김경은). His name follows the East Asian convention of family name first, though some Western galleries choose to reorder his name with the Western convention as Kyung Kim. He was born in Hadong, Gyeongnam during the Imperial Japanese occupation, as the eldest son of a poor farm family, and at the age of 18 he entered the art department of Japan University. In 1943, he returned to his hometown to escape being drafted into the Japanese army...
Category

1940s Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Madison Wisconsin, 1973
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Madison Wisconsin, 1973 Silver gelatin photograph, 1973 Signed and dated in ink lower right corner (see photo) Titled in in on reverse (see photo) Condition: Excellent ...
Category

1970s Modern Art

Materials

Silver Gelatin

“Bouquet by the Sea”
Located in Southampton, NY
Oil on artist board original painting by the well known American artist, Nicolai Cikovsky. Thick vibrant colors with a vase of flowers, a banjo and a notebook with photographs with a rough sea as the background. Circa 1940. Condition is very good. Overall framed in a circa 1960 frame, 23 by 27.25 inches. Landscape and figure painter Nicolai S. Cikovsky, 1894-1984, was born in Russia, where he studied at the Vilna Art School, 1910-1914; the Penza Royal Art School, 1914-1918; and Moscow High Tech Art...
Category

1940s Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Board

Erotic Scene - Lithograph by Toyen - 1927
Located in Roma, IT
Erotic scene is an artwork realized by Toyen in 1923. Mixed colored watercolored lithograph. The artwork is an illustration from the book Pybrac written by Pierre Louÿs  (1870-1925...
Category

1920s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

L'atelier du vieux peintre
Located in OPOLE, PL
Pablo Picasso — L'Atelier du vieux peintre Technique: Original color lithograph on paper, printed in five colors Date: 1954 Publisher/Printer: Mourlot, Paris Unnumbered and unsigne...
Category

20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Original Let's Go U. S. Marines On Land at Sea in the Air vintage WW2 poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original, LET’S GO! U.S. MARINES, on Land at Sea and in the Air, 1941 vintage poster. Archival linen backed and ready to frame. Original US Government-issued fold marks were pr...
Category

1940s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

1900's French Oil Painting Impressionist Portrait Sketch Portrait Young Lady
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Portrait of Young Lady French School, early 1900's period oil on canvas, unframed canvas: 26 x 21 inches provenance: private collection, Paris condition: very good and sound condition
Category

Early 1900s Modern Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Blue Green Mid Century Modern Artwork Hand Embellished Giclee on Canvas
Located in Sherman Oaks, CA
Vibrant Colorful Abstract-0-18,' a stunning piece of state-of-the-art HAND EMBELLISHED artwork by the talented artist Irena Orlov. This Giclee Reproduction is a true masterpiece, me...
Category

2010s Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Varnish, Archival Ink, Acrylic, Digital, Inkjet, Giclée

Huge 20th Century British Naive Welsh Oil Painting Village Life in Winter Snow
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Winter in the Village by Ben George Powell, British contemporary artist signed oil on canvas, unframed canvas: 32 x 40 inches provenance: private collection of this artists work, UK ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Composition (Cramer 105), Femmes, Joan Miró
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Héliogravure on vélin d’Arches paper. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the folio, Joan Miró, Femmes, 1965. Published by Maeght Éditeur, Paris; printed ...
Category

1960s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Nude by Carmen Bilbao - Oil on canvas 80x90 cm
Located in Geneva, CH
Oil on canvas sold with frame Total size with frame 88x98 cm Carmen Bilbao was born in Bolivia in 1954. Graduated in Fine Arts from the Faculty of Architecture and Fine Arts at the...
Category

1990s Modern Art

Materials

Oil

Cerro II. Cerros series. Male Nudes Black and White limited edition photograph
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Cerro II. From the "Cerros" series by Ricky Cohete From the "Cerros" series Small size: 30 in H x 20 in W. Edition of 13 Unframed All prices are quoted as "initial price" and may c...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Modern Art

Materials

Archival Pigment, Black and White

Huge Spanish/ French Oil Painting - Baby blue couple
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
The Dancers by Maria Tort Xirau (Catalan, 1924-2018) signed lower corner dated 1999 oil painting on canvas, framed canvas: 36 x 55 inches framed: 41 ...
Category

1990s Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Cripple Creek Victor Mine Colorado, 1940 Watercolor Mountain Landscape Art
Located in Denver, CO
Original 1940 watercolor painting on paper by celebrated Colorado modernist Charles Ragland Bunnell, depicting the Cripple Creek or Victor Mine, nestled ...
Category

1940s Modern Art

Materials

Watercolor

Villajoyosa, Spain by Alexandre de Spengler - Oil on Masonite 44x78 cm
Located in Geneva, CH
Alexandre de Spengler (1893–1973) was a Swiss painter and engraver active in Geneva and Paris. He is known for his land and seascapes, as well as...
Category

1950s Modern Art

Materials

Oil, Masonite

Coolidge Dam, Arizona, printed later
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Coolidge Dam, Arizona Gelatin silver print, (1938), printed later, circa 1980 Unsigned A lifetime printing by Brett Weston, supervised by his father Edward Edition of 5 or 6 examples...
Category

1980s Modern Art

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Donkey Man - Lithograph By Alexandre De Bar - 19th Century
Located in Roma, IT
Donkey Man is a lithograph made by Alexandre De Bar (1821-1901) during the 19th century. Good condition.  Glued on white cardboard.
Category

19th Century Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

"Liberty" Heavy Impasto Expressionist Nude Portrait of a Lady Standing
Located in Soquel, CA
"Liberty" Heavy Impasto Expressionist Nude Portrait of a Lady Standing Abstract expressionist portrait of a woman standing with one arm raised over her head by California artist Har...
Category

1970s Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Stretcher Bars

L'Hortensia by Jean Pierre Cassigneul
Located in New Orleans, LA
Jean-Pierre Cassigneul b.1935 French L'Hortensia (The Hortensia) Signed “Cassigneul” (lower right) Oil on canvas Jean Pierre Cassigneul’s L'Hortensia captures an elegant woman se...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

'Verdi' — American Modernism - Italian Opera Composer
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Paul Landacre, 'Verdi', wood engraving, 1936, edition 60, (only 14 printed), Wien 188. Signed, titled, and numbered '10/60' in pencil. A fine impression, on cream, laid Japan paper, ...
Category

1930s Modern Art

Materials

Woodcut

Mid Century Modern Vintage Swedish Abstract Figurative Painting - Figure in Blue
Located in Bristol, GB
FIGURE IN BLUE Size: 48.5 x 42.5 cm (including frame) Acrylic on card A striking mid-century modernist abstract figurative painting that presents a seated figure rendered in deep, e...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Acrylic

Naturaleza Muerta
Located in Palm Desert, CA
"Naturaleza Muerta" is an oil on canvas work painted by Rufino Tamayo in 1935. The artwork size is 29 1/4 x 58 3/4 inches. The framed size is 40 1/4 x 69 3/4 x 2 1/2 inches. The work...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Night Walk 3 (Natural Structures, Shifting Daylight, Floral, Botanical, 26% OFF)
Located in Kansas City, MO
Susan Davidoff Night Walk 3 (Natural Structures, Shifting Daylight) Year: 2013 Medium: Lithograph Edition: 36 Paper: Rives BFK, White Paper Size: 22″ x 21.75″ Image Size: 16″ x 15.25...
Category

2010s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Giacometti, Composition, Derrière le miroir (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From Derrière le miroir, N° 127, 1961. Published by Aimé Maeght, Éditeur, Paris; pr...
Category

1960s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Saint-Tropez Boucherie Slim Aarons Estate Stamped Print
Located in London, GB
Saint-Tropez Boucherie 1971 by Slim Aarons Slim Aarons Limited Estate Edition A boucherie or butcher’s shop on Rue des Commercants in Saint-Tropez, on the French Riviera, August 1...
Category

1970s Modern Art

Materials

Archival Pigment

Picasso, Composition (Cramer 88), Dans l'Atelier de Picasso (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin d'Arches à la forme savoir paper. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Dans l'Atelier de Picasso, 1957. Published by Fernan...
Category

1950s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

"Marilyn Getting Ready To Go Out" by Ed Feingersh
Located in London, GB
"Marilyn Getting Ready To Go Out" by Ed Feingersh Actress Marilyn Monroe gets ready to go see the play "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" playfully applying her make up and Chanel No. 5 Perfum...
Category

1950s Modern Art

Materials

Black and White

Original Lithograph - Henri Matisse - Apollinaire
Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
Original Lithograph - Henri Matisse - Apollinaire Artist : Henri MATISSE 13 x 10 inches Edition: 151/330 References : Duthuit-Matisse Catalogue raisonné 31 MATISSE'S BIOGRAPHY YOUTH AND EARLY EDUCATION Henri Emile Benoît Matisse was born in a tiny, tumbledown weaver's cottage on the rue du Chêne Arnaud in the textile town of Le Cateau-Cambrésis at eight o'clock in the evening on the last night of the year, 31 December 1869 (Le Cateau-Cambrésis is in the extreme north of France near the Belgian border). The house had two rooms, a beaten earth floor and a leaky roof. Matisse said long afterwards that rain fell through a hole above the bed in which he was born. Matisse’s ancestors had lived in the area for centuries before the convulsive social and industrial upheavals of the nineteenth century. Matisse grew up in a world that was still detaching itself from a way of life in some ways unchanged since Roman times. The coming of the railway had put Bohain on the industrial map, but people still traveled everywhere on foot or horseback. Matisse’s father, Émile Hippolyte Matisse, was a grain merchant whose family were weavers. His mother, Anna Heloise Gerard, was a daughter of a long line of well-to-do tanners. Warmhearted, outgoing, capable and energetic, she was small and sturdily built with the fashionable figure of the period: full breasts and hips, narrow waist, neat ankles and elegant small feet. She had fair skin, broad cheekbones and a wide smile. "My mother had a face with generous features," said her son Henri, who always spoke of her with particular tenderness of the sensitivity. Throughout the forty years of her marriage, she provided unwavering, rocklike support to her husband and her sons. Matisse later said: "My mother loved everything I did." He grew up in nearby Bohain-en-Vermandois, an industrial textile center, until the age of ten, when his father sent him to St. Quentin for lycée. Anna Heloise worked hard. She ran the section of her husband's shop that sold housepaints, making up the customers' orders and advising on color schemes. The colors evidently left a lasting impression on Henri. The artist himself later said he got his color sense from his mother, who was herself an accomplished painter on porcelain, a fashionable art form at the time. Henri was the couple’s first son. The young Matisse was an awkward youth who seemed ill-adapted to the rigors of the North; in particular, he hated the gelid winters. He was a pensive child and by his own account he was a dreamy, frail and not outstandingly bright. In later life he never lost his feeling for his native soil, for seeds and growing things he had encountered in his youth. The fancy pigeons he kept in Nice more than half a century after he left home recalled the weavers' pigeon-lofts tucked away behind even the humblest house in Bohain. Matisse's childhood memories were of a stern upbringing. "Be quick!" "Look out!" "Run along!" "Get cracking!" were the refrains that rang in his ears as a boy. In later years when survival itself depended on habits of thrift and self-denial, the artist prided himself on being a man of the North. When Matisse in turn had children of his own to bring up, he chided himself for any lapse in discipline or open display of tenderness as weakness on his part. In 1887 he went to Paris to study law, working as a court administrator in Le Cateau-Cambrésis after gaining his qualification. Although he considered law as tedious, he nonetheless passed the bar in 1888 with distinction and began his practice begrudgingly. Once Matisse finished school, his father, a much more practical man, arranged for his son to obtain a clerking position at a law office. PAINTING: BEGINNINGS Matisse’s discovery of his true profession came about in an unusual manner. Following an attack of appendicitis, he began to paint in 1889, when his mother had brought him art supplies during the period of convalescence. He said later, “From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life. I threw myself into it like a beast that plunges towards the thing it loves.” Matisse’s mother was the first to advise her son not to adhere to the “rules” of art, but rather listen to his own emotions. Matisse was so committed to his art that he later extended a warning to his fiancée, Amélie Parayre, whom he later married: “I love you dearly, mademoiselle; but I shall always love painting more.” Matisse had discovered "a kind of paradise" as he later described it. His drastic change of profession deeply disappointed his father. Two years later in 1891 Matisse returned to Paris to study art at the Académie Julian and became a student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau. After a discouraging year at the Académie Julian, he left in disgust at the overly perfectionist style of teaching there. Afterwards he trained with Gustave Moreau, an artist who nurtured more progressive leanings. In both studios, as was usual, students drew endless figure studies from life. From Bouguereau, he learned the fundamental lessons of classical painting. His one art-schooled technical standby, almost a fetish, was the plumb line. No matter how odd the angles in any Matisse, the verticals are usually dead true. Moreau was a painter who despised the "art du salon", so Matisse was destined, in a certain sense, to remain an "outcast" of the art world. He initially failed his drawing exam for admission to the École des Beaux-Arts, but persisted and was finally accepted. Matisse began painting still-lives and landscapes in the traditional Flemish style, at which he achieved reasonable proficiency. Most of his early works employ a dark palette and tend to be gloomy. Chardin was one of Matisse's most admired painters having made four the French still-life master paintings in the Louvre. Although he executed numerous copies after the old masters he also studied contemporary art. His first experimentations earned him a reputation as the rebellious member of his studio classes. In 1896, Matisse was elected as an associate member of the Société Nationale, which meant that each year he could show paintings at the Salon de la Société without having to submit them for review. In the same year he exhibited 5 paintings in the salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and the state bought two of his paintings. This was the first and almost only recognition he received in his native country during his lifetime. In 1897 and 1898, he visited the painter John Peter Russell on the island Belle Île off the coast of Brittany. Russell introduced him to Impressionism and to the work of Van Gogh who had been a good friend of Russell but was completely unknown at the time. Matisse's style changed completely, and he would later say "Russell was my teacher, and Russell explained color theory to me." Matisse also observed Russell's and other artists' stable marriages. This probably influenced him to find in Amélie Noellie Parayre, his future wife, his anchor. The Dinner Table (1897) was Matisse’s first masterpiece, and he had spent the entire winter working on the oeuvre. Though the Salon displayed the piece, they hung the work in a poor location, disgusted by what they considered its radical, Impressionist aspects. Caroline Joblaud was Matisse's early lover for four years during his initial struggles to affirm his artistic direction and professional career. Caroline (also called Camille) gave Matisse his first daughter Marguerite in 1894, who after Matisse's marriage to Amélie Noellie Parayre was warmly accepted contrary to conventional hostility such arrangements provoked. Caroline posed various times for the artist’s compositions while Marguerite served many times as a model for Matisse throughout his life. MARRIAGE WITH AMÉLIE NOELLIE PARAYRE The Matisses of Bohain and the Parayres of Beauzelle had outwardly nothing in common, and there was no reason why Matisse and Amélie should ever have met. But in October 1897 Matisse went to a wedding in Paris and happened to sit next to her at the uproarious banquet that followed. There had been no banal flirtation between them, even when the wine flowed, each recognized the other as true metal, and when they got up from the table she held out her hand to Henri Matisse in a way that he never forgot. Matisse at that time was not yet the professorial figure of legend. He was known as a prankster, as a ribald and anti-clerical songster, and as someone who had once broken up a café concert performance just for the hell of it. Amélie's relatives operated at that time within a social, intellectual, and political context of which Matisse had had no previous experience. They stood for free thinking, for the separation of church and state, and for the secularization of the French educational system. Her family, better off that that of Matisse, provided the support he needed for the budding artist. When Matisse married Amélie in January 1898, they had been introduced only three months after. Amélie's Aunt Noélie and two of her brothers ran a successful women's shop called the Grande Maison des Modes. Before her marriage, Amélie had shown a gift for designing, making, and modeling hats for a fashionable clientele. In June 1899, she found a partner and opened a shop of her own on the rue de Châteaudun. This allowed Henri and herself to live, with Marguerite, in a tiny two-room apartment on the same street. Madame Matisse, fervently loyal, would play a fundamental role in the life and career of the artist for more than 40 years. Marguerite was to become her father's lifetime mainstay In 1902 disaster struck. Amélie’s parents were disgraced and financially ruined in a spectacular scandal of national scope, as the unsuspecting employees of a woman whose financial empire was based on fraud. Thanks to his early years in a lawyer's office, Matisse was able to busy himself to great effect in the organization of his father-in-law's defense. When all about him lost their heads, burst into tears, and felt more than sorry for themselves, Henri Matisse dealt with their problems one by one. The ordeal had taken its toll, in more than one way. His doctors ordered Matisse to go to Bohain and take two months' complete rest. Amélie had lost both her hat shop and the apartment on the rue de Châteaudun. For the first time, Henri, Amélie and the three children were united in Bohain, having nowhere else to go. Hillary Spurling, one of Matisse’s biographers, asserts that Amélie’s memories of that public disgrace nurtured a “suspicion of the outside world” that would always mark the Matisse family. The Matisse family formed a kind of hermetic unit which revolved around the artist’s work and profession. They fitted their activities according his breaks and work sessions. Silence was essential. Even during the years when Matisse lived mostly alone in Nice, an annual ritual of unpacking, stretching, framing and hanging ended with the whole family settling down to respond to the paintings. The conference might last several days. Then the dealers were admitted. Matisse and his wife had had two sons, Jean (born 1899) and Pierre (born 1900). He was not always in peace with his family. He wrote that their views were not always in accord “which disturbs me considerably in my work, for which I require the most complete calm and from those how surround me, a serenity that I cannot find here. I intend to move to a village a few league away.” Pierre, his brother, Jean, and Marguerite remained close to their father through every vicissitude, and Matisse, in his last invalid years, was devoted to his several grandchildren. In 1899, at a time when his paintings displayed rebellious talent but not much clear direction, Matisse began attending classes in clay modeling and sculpture. Assigned to copy one of the sculptural masterpieces in the Louvre, he selected Jaguar Devouring a Hare a violently precise work by Antoine-Louis Barye. Later, whenever his paintings seemed stuck, he turned to sculpture to organize his thoughts and sensations. Influenced by the works of the post-Impressionists Paul Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Paul Signac, and also by Japanese art, Matisse made color a crucial element of his paintings. Matisse said, "In modern art, it is indubitably to Cézanne that I owe the most." By studying Cézanne’s fragmented planes -- which stretched the idea of the still life to a forced contemplation of color surfaces themselves -- Matisse was able to reconstruct his own philosophy of the still life. Many of his paintings from 1899 to 1905 make use of a pointillist technique adopted from Signac. In 1898, he went to London to study the paintings of J. M. W. Turner and then went on a trip to Corsica. After years in poverty, Matisse went through his "dark period" (1902-03), moved briefly to naturalism, went back to a dark palette and told friends in 1903 that he had lost all desire to paint and had almost decided to give up. Fortunately, Matisse was able to earn some money painting a frieze for the World Fair at the Grand Palais in Paris. He also traveled extensively in the early 1900s when tourism was still a new idea. Brought on by railroad, steamships, and other forms of transportation that appeared during the industrial revolution, travel became a popular pursuit. As a cultured tourist, he developed his art with regular doses of travel. FAUVISM Matisse's career can be divided into several periods that changed stylistically, but his underlying aim always remained the same: to discover "the essential character of things" and to produce an art "of balance, purity, and serenity," as he himself put it. The changing studio environments seemed always to have had a significant effect on the style of his work. In these first years of struggle Matisse set his revolutionary artistic agenda. He disregarded perspective, abolished shadows, repudiating the academic distinction between line and color. He was attempting to overturn a way of seeing evolved and accepted by the Western world for centuries by substituting a conscious subjectivity in the place of the traditional illusion of objectivity . Matisse hit his stride in the avant-garde art world in the first years of the new decade. He explored the modern art scene through frequent visits to galleries such as Durand-Ruel and Vollard, where he was exposed to work by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh. Matisse’s first solo exhibition took place in 1904, without much success. In 16 May 1905 he arrived in the charming Catalan port of Collioure, in the south of France. He soon invited the painter André Derain (1880-1954), 11 years his junior, to join him. By 1905, Matisse was considered spearhead the Fauve movement in France, characterized by its spontaneity and roughness of execution as well as use of raw color straight from the palette to the canvas. Matisse combined pointillist color and Cézanne’s way of structuring pictorial space stroke by stroke to develop Fauvism - a way less of seeing the world than of feeling it with one’s eyes. When the Fauve summer drew to an end, Derain left Collioure with 30 paintings, 20 drawings and some 50 sketches, never to return, while Matisse departed some days later bringing back to Paris 15 finished paintings, 40 aquarelles, over 100 drawings. He returned Collioure in the summers of 1906, 1907, 1911 and 1914. The lure of the sun would prove always to have powers of restoration to the artist throughout his life particularly after periods of great emotional exertion. When Fauvist works were first exhibited Salon d'Automne in Paris they created a scandal. Eyewitness accounts tell of laughter emanating from room VII where they were displayed. Gertrud Stein, one of Matisse's most important future supporters, reported that people scratched at the canvases in derision. "A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public" was the reaction by the critic Camille Mauclair. Louis Vauxcelles described the work with the historic phrase "Donatello au milieu des fauves!" (Donatello among the wild beasts), referring to a Renaissance-type sculpture that shared the room with them. His comment was printed on 17 October 1905 in Gil Blas, a daily newspaper, and passed into popular usage. Derain himself later called the Fauves' color "sticks of dynamite." The painting that was singled out for attacks was Matisse's Woman with a Hat, a portrait of Madame Matisse. This picture was bought be was bought by Gertrude and Leo Stein, a fact which had a very positive effect on Matisse who was suffering demoralization from the bad reception of his work. Matisse continued his experiments in Collioure, visible in the painting The Open Window and the View of Collioure , also a characteristic work of Fauvism in its raw color and disregard for details. Both of these works of the landscape in the French Mediterranean present a distinct development towards the spontaneous and uninhibited style. Other than André Derain, Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy and Maurice Vlaminck were also members of the Fauve movement. However, Matisse’s intimate friends among artists were mostly easygoing minor painters, such as Albert Marquet. Matisse’s temperamental aloneness made him prey to vertiginous depressions. He later recalled a breakdown that he underwent in Spain, in 1910: “My bed shook, and from my throat came a little high-pitched cry that I could not stop.” From the onset of is career women were from one of the cardinal motifs of the artist's production. His Joy of Life (1906) draws us into the world of hallucinatory vividness composed of nymphs set in an idyllic open fields dressed in pure color and sensual outline. Two women lounge in the sunlight while two more chat on the edge of the forest. One crouches to pick some flowers while her companion weaves a chain of them into her hair. A couple embraces each other while another group engages in a lively round-dance in the distance. In this way, Joy of Life depicts woodland nymphs engaging in a celebration of their life, their womanhood, and their sexuality. Due to the recurrent incidence of nude women and intensely sensual interpretation many observers have assumed that as a man Matisse must have been a hedonist. On the contrary, historic examination demonstrates that in reality, he was rather a self-abnegating Northerner who lived only to work, and did so in chronic anguish, recurrent panic, and amid periodic breakdowns. While Picasso recompensed himself, as he went along, with gratifications of intellectual and erotic play Matisse did not. In an age of ideologies, Matisse dodged all ideas except perhaps one: that art is life by other means. Matisse’s uninhibited celebration of women is often believed to have initiated from Cézanne’s painting Three Bathers (1882) (which he had acquired for himself along with a Van Gogh and a Gauguin). However, Matisse depicts women as nurturing, welcoming, and unlike the forbidding, massive clay-like presence of those of Paul Cézanne. FAME The decline of the Fauvist movement, after 1906, did nothing to deter the rise of Matisse. From 1906 -1917 he lived in Paris and established his home, studio, and school at Hôtel Biron. Among his neighbors is sculptor Auguste Rodin, writer Jean Cocteau, and dancer Isadora Duncan. Many of his finest works were created in this period, when he was an active part of the great gathering of artistic talent in Montparnasse, even though he did not quite fit in with his conservative appearance and strict bourgeois work habits. In fact, the aim of Matisse’s art was something less than revolutionary. In 1908, in a famous statement drawn from “Notes of a Painter,” Matisse declared as his ideal an art “for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.” Matisse's personal habits were incredibly regular. On a typical day rose early and worked all morning with a second work session after lunch, followed by violin practice, a simple supper (vegetable soup, two hard-boiled eggs, salad and a glass of wine) and an early bedtime. In 1906, he created a series of 12 lithographs, all variations on the theme of a seated nude. He chose to share his graphic work with the public almost immediately. The lithographs were exhibited at the Druet Gallery in Paris the same year that they were produced, and the woodcuts were shown at the Salon des Independants in the spring of 1907. In 1907 Appolinaire, commenting about Matisse in an article published in La Falange, said, "We are not here in the presence of an extravagant or an extremist undertaking: Matisse's art is eminently reasonable." Notwithstanding newly-won fame, Matisse's work continued to encounter vehement criticism and it was difficult for him to provide for his family. His controversial 1907 painting Blue Nude was burned in effigy at the Armory Show in Chicago in 1913. Contrary to the fate of the Impressionists, Matisse and other Fauves were able to exhibit in art galleries. In 1908 Paul Cassirer, the German art dealer and editor who played a significant role in the promotion of the work the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, staged an exhibit of Matisse’s works in Berlin. In the same year the American photographer Alfred Stieglitz in New York organized him one-man show in his tiny Manhattan gallery called 291 which effectively introduced Matisse the powerful American art market. In the first decade of his notoriety as the leader of the Fauves, Matisse was more admired by foreigners than by the French. It was, after all, the Russians and the Americans who acquired significant collections of his early work almost as quickly as it was created. The great Matisses we see in the Paris museums today were mostly acquired after the artist's death in lieu of death duties. It took the French a good deal longer to understand Matisse's greatness-longer, certainly, than the international cadre of aspiring talents that flocked to his classes when he was still one of the most controversial figures in the Paris avant-garde. In the summer of 1907, Matisse and his wife went on a long trip to italy "for work and Pleasure," visiting Venice and Padua, where they admired Giotto's frescos. In Florence the were the guests of the Steins in their villa in Fiesole. From this base matisse visited Arezzo, to study Piero della Francesca, and Siena, attracted by the early Sienese painters, especially, Duccio. PICASSO, GERTRUDE STEIN AND THE CONE SISTERS During the first decade of the 20th century Americans in Paris Gertrude Stein, her brothers Leo Stein, Michael Stein and Michael's wife Sarah took keen interest in Matisse's art. In addition, Gertrude Stein's two friends from Baltimore. Clarabel and Etta Cone, became major patrons of Matisse and Picasso, collecting hundreds of their works.The Cone Sisters acquired their first Matisse in 1906 and, during the next four decades, went on to form one of the world's great collections of his art. The Cone Collection not only contains major works from every phase of Matisse's long career but reflects the sisters' special interest in his Nice period, when a new complexity of form and psychology entered the ever intense surface allure of his paintings. In April of 1906 during a gathering at the house of the legendary Gertrude Stein, Matisse was introduced to Pablo Picasso who was 11 years younger. Picasso and Matisse were poles apart aesthetically and their life styles were no less so. Matisse was markedly taller and more polished than the stocky, cocky Catalan, was then ruler of the turbulent Paris avant-garde art scene. The two were said to have always been looking over their shoulders at each other. It is well-known that after their rivalry grew, sides were taken. Picasso later said: "No one has ever looked at Matisse's paintings more carefully than I; and no one has looked at mine more carefully than he." One key difference between their pictorial concepts was that Matisse drew and painted from nature, while Picasso was much more inclined to work from imagination. The subjects painted most frequently by both artists were women and still lives, with Matisse more likely to place his figures in fully realized interiors. Gertrude Stein, who loved stirring things up, wrote, "the feeling between the Picassoites and the Matisse-ites became bitter." Although Matisse dryly noted that "our disputes were always friendly," it should be pointed out that Picasso and his friends threw suction-cupped darts at Matisse's 1906 Portrait of Marguerite (which Picasso had obtained in a trade for his own Pitcher, Bowl and Lemon, from 1907). While the rift between the two artists eventually healed, the one between their supporters remained. ACADEMIE MATISSE IN PARIS & SERGEI SHCHUKIN In 1909, with the Matisse family lived in a former convent on the Boulevard des Invalides, in Paris, where the artist conducted a painting school. His immense notoriety, which had been confirmed in 1905-06 by Joy of Life, a work which seemed to trash every possible norm of pictorial order and painterly finesse.His friends organized and financed the Académie Matisse in Paris, a private and non-commercial school in which Matisse instructed young artists. It operated from 1911 until 1917. Hans Purrmann and Sarah Stein were several of his most loyal students. Although it lasted for only three years (1908-11), and yet, during its brief existence the Académie Matisse became one of the principal crossroads of modern painting for a number of gifted European and American artists. Given the reputation Matisse had acquired as the"wild man" of modernist color, it must have come as a shock to some of his early students that the program of instruction he offered was remarkably conservative. As Jean Heiberg, the first Norwegian to enroll in the Académie, later wrote in a memoir: "The school had, at Matisse's suggestion, acquired a copy of two antique sculptures from the Louvre, Mars and an archaic sculpture, which he often used to demonstrate. Every now and then he got completely rid of the life model and we only drew from the plaster casts, and his critiques then were no less profitable." Among Matisse’s students was Olga Meerson, a Russian Jew who had studied with Wassily Kandinsky in Munich and, already possessed of an elegant style, sought to remake herself under Matisse’s tutelage. Amélie suspected the worst. Perhaps a combination of Amélie’s jealousy and Meerson’s neediness caused a Matisse to end the connection, with bad feeling all around. Meerson moved to Munich, where she married the musician Heinz Pringsheim, a brother-in-law of Thomas Mann. Never having fulfilled her promise as a painter, she committed suicide in Berlin, in 1929. One of Matisse's biographers, with access to much of the artist's correspondence, contends that the artist, after his marriage, rarely, if ever, had sex with models, despite his apparent feelings for many. Two Russian art collectors stood out at the beginning of the 20th century: the cloth merchant Sergei Shchukin (1854–1936) and the textile manufacturer Ivan Morozov (1871–1921). Both acquired modern French art, developed a sensibility for spotting new trends, and publicized them in Russia. In this period, Matisse had initiated his fecund association with the Russian textile magnate and visionary collector, Sergei Shchukin. The artist created one of his major works La Danse specially for Shchukin as part of a two painting commission. Inspired by a circular dance-- perhaps a sardana - performed by fishermen at Collioure, this painting embodies the clash between the sacred and reality. Human hands link together, but they form a divine spirit. Moreover, Matisse all but abandoned perspective The work ’s flatness emphasizes the idea, colors, and material, a notion that made Matisse a model for Modernists. The other painting commissioned was Music, 1909. Shchukin was considered by some almost as a co-producer of some of the artist’s greatest works and was strongly commuted to the French painter’s work. Concerning the violent attacks on his friend, the Russian wrote to the artist: “The public is against you, but the future is yours.” By 1914 Shchukin’s house in Moscow contained thirty-seven Matisses. “He always picked the best,” the artist said. During the political revolution Lenin expropriated Shchukin collection in person but allowed Shchukin to remain, in servants’ quarters, as caretaker and guide. He died in Paris, in 1936. The collection is now in the Hermitage and Pushkin Museums From about 1911 to 1915, Matisse struggled with the ideas of Cubism, an experiment he felt he was "not participating in" because it did not "speak to [his] deeply sensory nature." MOROCCO Like many avant-garde artists in Paris, Matisse was receptive to a broad range of influences. He is one of the first painters to take an interest in various forms of “primitive” art. His art was profoundly influenced by Easter art as well. Matisse first flirted with the idea of visiting Morocco after a trip to the Moorish part of Spain in the winter of 1910. This taste of the Moors incited a flame of hope that there would be greater inspiration to paint in Morocco. Furthermore, well aware of the exotic subjects in Morocco that had engendered a wealth of inspiration for the famous French painter Delacroix when he visited the country over eighty years before, Matisse felt Morocco would stimulate his painting genius in ways Europe could not. He strove for neither the picturesque nor the pornographic. In Morocco, Matisse seems to have had difficulties finding models who would pose for him, particularly women because of the law of the veil. Only Jewesses and prostitutes were exempt. Luckily, Matisse to have found the prostitute Zorah for the purpose although he did not paint her as a prostitute. Instead, in his first picture of her, Zorah en Jaune, sexual themes are most conspicuously absent from the canvas. As a prostitute used to exposing and flaunting her body, Zorah could have easily been painted nude or with less clothing to show herself off, but instead Matisse chooses to keep her clothed and posed with prudence. Unlike the primitive, nude Western women in the Fauve Joy of Life. Moroccan Zorah is clothed with respect and detail to her finer characteristics. He is developing his ability to paint with awareness of the non-sexual qualities of his subject, a movement away from Fauve women. Many of Matisse's Moroccan paintings are covered only in the thinnest washes of pigment, as if he wanted the texture of the unpainted canvas to show through so that it would add rawness to the browns and grays. Matisse's odalisques have been described as "elaborate fictions" in which the artist re-created the image of the Islamic harem using French models posed in his Nice apartment. The fabrics, screens, carpets, furnishings and costuming recalled the exoticism of the "Orient" and provided a theme for Matisse's preoccupation with the figure and elaborate patterns of exotic fabrics. Although Matisse's interest in textiles are evident in his compositions made during his 1906 trip to Morocco, it didn't begin as a typical European attraction to the exotic. It was already present to him as a descendent of generations of weavers, who was raised among weavers in Bohain-en-Vermandois, which in the 1880's and 90's was a center of production of fancy silks for the Parisian fashion houses. Like virtually all his northern compatriots, he had an inborn appreciation of their texture and design. He understood the properties of weight and hang, he knew how to use pins and paper patterns, and he was supremely confident with scissors. Matisse was known to be an avid collector of fabrics, from his days as a poor art student in Paris to the latter years of his life, when his Nice studio overflowed with Persian carpets, delicate Arab embroideries, richly hued African wall hangings, and any number of colorful cushions, curtains, costumes, patterned screens, and backcloths. Textiles soon became the springboard for his radical experiments with perspective and an art based on decorative patterning and pure harmonies of color and line. When he moved house, he also moved his fabrics, describing them as "my working library." He added to the collection all his life, from markets in Algeria, Morocco and Tahiti to the end-of-season sales of Parisian haute couture. The revitalizing spirit of Morocco would live on in the artist's imagination until the cutouts of the artist's last years. AFTER PARIS Matisse continued to evolve in unexpected directions even though never became an abstract painter (though some of his most adventurous works, such as the View of Notre Dame of 1914 or the Yellow Curtain of 1916 come close). His motifs were always recognizable, and the tension between the subject and the formal aspects of the painting was a central concept of his artistic ideal. Matisse moved to Nice in 1917 to distance himself from wartime activity, where bright, warm colors showed him "simpler venues which won’t stifle the spirit." His spirit became loyal to the "silver clarity of light" in Nice, and he returned to Paris only for a few months each summer. The years 1917–30 are known as his early Nice period, when his principal subject remained the female figure or an odalisque dressed in oriental costume or in various stages of undress, depicted as standing, seated, or reclining in a luxurious, exotic interior of Matisse's own creation. These paintings are infused with southern light, bright colors, and a profusion of decorative patterns. They emanate the atmosphere suggestive of a harem. In 1929, Matisse temporarily suspended easel painting and traveled to America to sit on the jury of the 29th Carnegie International and, in 1930, spent some time in Tahiti and New York as well as Baltimore, Maryland and Merion, Pennsylvania.He was especially thrilled with New York. An important collector of modern art, and owner of the largest Matisse holdings in America, Dr. Albert Barnes of Merion, commissioned the artist to paint a large mural for the two-story picture gallery of his mansion. Matisse chose the subject of the dance, a theme that had preoccupied him since his early Fauve masterpiece Joy of Life. Americans were prominent among Matisse's patrons throughout his career, beginning with the Steins (Leo Stein bought Joy of Life right out of the Salon in 1906) and including the Cone sisters of Baltimore and the notoriously cantankerous Barnes. The foundational Matisse monograph was written during his lifetime by another American, Alfred Barr. Also important in promoting Matisse's presence before the transatlantic public was the Manhattan gallery founded in 1931 by the artist's son, Pierre, who remained a prominent figure in the New York art world for almost six decades. In addition to his father, he represented Balthus, Calder, Dubuffet, Giacometti, Miro, Tanguy and others, many of them also friends. Throughout his long and productive career, Matisse periodically refreshed his creative energies by turning from painting to drawing, sculpture and other forms of artistic expression. In his lifetime he also produced 12 illustrated books which were known as “livre d’artiste” (artist’s book), a specific type of illustrated book that became common in France around the turn of the century. These books were deluxe, limited editions, meant to be collected and admired as works of art, as well as, read. This process began when Swiss publisher Albert Skira first approached the modern master in 1930 to illustrate the work, Poesies, by 19th century French symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé . Matisse responded to Skira’s invitation with great enthusiasm and that summer, devoted most of his attention to the commission while he was residing in Paris. The result was a collection of 29 beautiful etchings, of which the Museum will display 16. The subject matter, like the poems themselves, varies considerably, although many of the images reflect the artist’s vacation to the South Pacific. Matisse’s etchings of Mallarmé’s poems are considered among his greatest works in the print medium. In 1941, again for Skira, Matisse began one of his most complicated and successful printmaking projects, Florilege des Amours de Ronsard, illustrating the love poems of 16th century French Renaissance poet Pierre de Ronsard. Ronsard’s subject and strong imagery lent themselves gracefully to Matisse’s favored themes of fruits, flowers, the female form and portraits. The artist selected the poems himself and translated the work from Renaissance French to contemporary French for the publication of the anthology DIVORCE & LATE FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS For all his long-lasting friendships with other artists, famous and obscure, Matisse's days and nights were absorbed by solitary labor. Playing the violin seemed a more intimate consolation for decades of critical abuse than the affections of his wife and children. Although their marriage was still somewhat fragile, the Matisses had decided to stay on in Nice when their lease expired at Place Charles-Félix in the summer of 1938. Matisse and his wife were separated in 1939 after 41 years when Amélie tried to dismiss the coolly efficient young Lydia Delectorskaya, an orphan refugee from Siberia, who had been hired as Amélie’s companion. However, the Matisses’ marriage ran afoul not of any romantic rival but for the artist’s wish to stand on his own. The first climax came years before in 1913, when Amélie sat more than a hundred times for the Portrait of Madame Matisse. A friend’s diary reported at the time. “Crazy! weeping! By night he recites the Lord’s Prayer! By day he quarrels with his wife!” The portrait, which was the last work to enter Shchukin’s collection, caused Matisse “palpitations, high blood pressure and a constant drumming in his ears.” Such frenzy was not rare when Matisse had difficulty with a painting. He referred to the painting years later in a letter to her as “the one that made you cry, but in which you look so pretty.” Amélie ceded routine leadership of the family to Marguerite. The 1913 portrait was his last painting of her. Matisse and his wife met the last time to discuss details of their legal separation, in July 1939. One of its key provisions was that everything would be divided equally between the couple. The meeting took place in Paris at the Gare St. Lazare and lasted thirty minutes, during which Amélie Matisse kept up a flow of small talk while her husband."My wife never looked at me, but I didn't take my eyes off her...," Matisse wrote on the night of that final encounter: "I couldn't get a word out.... I remained as if carved out of wood, swearing never to be caught that way again." "I'm going to try to isolate myself as if I were still absent,'' Matisse announced on his first return to Paris since the official separation from his wife, 'rarely leaving his apartment except for visits to the cinema (his first color film, starring Danny Kaye, was a revelation).'' After her dismissal, Delectorskaya shot herself in the chest with a pistol, remarkably with only a slight effect. Soon after the artist and his wife were legally separated Delectorskaya was back. She arrived with a bouquet of white daisies and blue cornflowers from her Aunt’s garden on July 15th, St Henry’s Day. Their working collaboration was to last right up to Matisse’s death in 1954. Her will throughout was indomitable; she typed, kept records and meticulous accounts and paid the household bills. She also organized Matisse’s correspondence and coordinated his business affairs with an iron grip as well as being his studio assistant and muse. And when called upon, even scoured the countryside on her bike for provisions during the war. Matisse claimed that his entire household came to a standstill in her absence which, in the light of what Lydia accomplished is anything, if not an understatement. In the face of the family’s icy resentment, the Russian said of Matisse, “He knew how to take possession of people and make them feel they were indispensable. That was how it was for me, and that was how it had been for Mme. Matisse.” Life with Matisse must have been taxing but it had been Amélie’s chosen vocation, through years of their studio-centered homes. Her central role in the artist's life was security, which Shchukin’s patronage provided, along with a sizable house in Issy-les-Moulineaux, where the family moved in 1909. However, in this period Matisse was increasingly absent. In 1930, his travels took him to the United States, where he was thrilled by New York, and to Tahiti. Matisse found that Tahiti was "both superb and boring . . . There the weather is beautiful at sunrise and it does not change until night. Such immutable happiness is tiring." He dived off the reefs and never forgot the colors of the madrepores and the absinthe-green water; these appear in cut-outs like Polynesia, 1946, or The Bird and the Shark, 1947, as images of a spectacular and, on the whole, beneficent nature. In September of 1940 he employed a temporary stand-in for his regular night nurse...
Category

1930s Modern Art

Materials

Linocut

Cathédrale by Jean Schweckler - Oil on canvas 42x51 cm
By Jean Schweckler
Located in Geneva, CH
Work on canvas
Category

1940s Modern Art

Materials

Oil

Oil Painting Still Life Fruit Bowl Polly Thayer Boston Modernist Woman Artist
Located in Surfside, FL
Polly Thayer Starr (1904-2006) Oil Painting Still Life Fruit Bowl Dimensions: Frame: 12.5" X 15.5", Image: 8.5" X 11.5" Polly Thayer (Starr) (1...
Category

20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Contemporary French Modernist Portrait with Beach Seascape Beyond
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Huguette Ginet-Lasnier (French 1927-2020) inscribed verso oil painting on textured canvas 18 x 15 inches. All the paintings we have for sale by this artist have come from the artist...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Pablo Picasso 'Pichet Anse Pris' (A. R. 186) Madoura Ceramic Pitcher 1953
Located in Miami, FL
PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973) Pichet Anse Pris (A. R. 186) Terre de faïence pitcher, 1953, numbered 126/200, inscribed 'Edition Picasso', painted, with the Edition Picasso and Madoura ...
Category

1960s Modern Art

Materials

Ceramic, Terracotta

Rizofora Mangle - Lithograph by Vincenzo Tenore - 1870s
Located in Roma, IT
Lithograph hand watercolored. Belongs to the Series "Atlante di Botanica popolare ossia Illustrazione di Piante Notevoli di ogni famiglia" (Atlas of popular botany or illustration o...
Category

1870s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Cilious Heterocentre - Lithograph by Vincenzo Tenore - 1870s
Located in Roma, IT
Lithograph hand watercolored. Belongs to the Series "Atlante di Botanica popolare ossia Illustrazione di Piante Notevoli di ogni famiglia" (Atlas of popular botany or illustration o...
Category

1870s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Modern art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Modern 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, red, orange, purple and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Kevin Westenberg, Stuart Möller, Destro, and Christel Haag. 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 Modern art, so small editions measuring 0.4 inches across are also available. Prices for art 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 $33 and tops out at $390,000, while the average work sells for $1,912.

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