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Realist Art

REALIST STYLE

Realist art attempts to portray its subject matter without artifice. Similar to naturalism, authentic realist paintings and prints see an integration of true-to-life colors, meticulous detail and linear perspectives for accurate portrayals of the world. 

Work that involves illusionistic techniques of realism dates back to the classical world, such as the deceptive trompe l’oeil used since ancient Greece. Art like this became especially popular in the 17th century when Dutch artists like Evert Collier painted objects that appeared real enough to touch. Realism as an artistic movement, however, usually refers to 19th-century French realist artists such as Honoré Daumier exploring social and political issues in biting lithographic prints, while the likes of Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet painting people — particularly the working class — with all their imperfections, navigating everyday urban life. This was a response to the dominant academic art tradition that favored grand paintings of myth and history. 

By the turn of the 20th century, European artists, such as the Pre-Raphaelites, were experimenting with nearly photographic realism in their work, as seen in the attention to every botanical attribute of the flowers surrounding the drowned Ophelia painted by English artist John Everett Millais.

Although abstraction was the guiding style of 20th-century art, the realism trend in American modern art endured in Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth and other artists’ depictions of the complexities of the human experience. In the late 1960s, Photorealism emerged with artists like Chuck Close and Richard Estes giving their paintings the precision of a frame of film.

Contemporary artists such as Jordan Casteel, LaToya Ruby Frazier and Aliza Nisenbaum are now using the unvarnished realist approach for honest representations of people and their worlds. Alongside traditional mediums, technology such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and immersive installations are helping artists create new sensations of realism in art.

​​Find authentic realist paintings, sculptures, prints and more art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Realist
Venetian painter – 19th c. Guardesque Venice lagoon – San Cristoforo
Venetian painter – 19th c. Guardesque Venice lagoon – San Cristoforo

Venetian painter – 19th c. Guardesque Venice lagoon – San Cristoforo

Located in Varmo, IT

Venetian painter (19th-20th century) — Venice, view of the Island of San Cristoforo della Pace. 35 x 45 cm (unframed) - 46 x 56 cm (framed). Oil on canvas, in a gilded and pain...

Category

Late 19th Century Realist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

BE WATER
BE WATER

BE WATER

By DARIA DUDOCHNYKOVA

Located in Zofingen, AG

She floats where silence begins — just beneath the skin of the water. Her form is neither here nor gone, dissolving into rhythm and light. There is no past, no edge, no name — only t...

Category

2010s Realist Art

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Antique American Modernist Framed Dog Portrait Signed Large Oil Painting
Antique American Modernist Framed Dog Portrait Signed Large Oil Painting

Antique American Modernist Framed Dog Portrait Signed Large Oil Painting

Located in Buffalo, NY

Antique American dog portrait oil painting. Oil on board. Signed. Framed. Provenance from a Sag Harbor, NY collection. Handsomely framed in a wood molding. Excellent condition, rea...

Category

1920s Realist Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Blood Moon, Oil Painting
Blood Moon, Oil Painting

Blood Moon, Oil Painting

By Jesse Aldana

Located in San Francisco, CA

Artist Comments
A blood moon glows softly against a brilliant night sky. A row of palm trees in the foreground reaches upward. Pale clouds drift and billow, adding a sense of c...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Art

Materials

Oil

Rowboat, Oil Painting
Rowboat, Oil Painting

Rowboat, Oil Painting

By Shela Goodman

Located in San Francisco, CA

Artist Comments
A lone rowboat rests on a lake, securely tied to a post and anchored underwater. Ripples gently disturb the reflection of the vessel, adding movement to the sce...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Art

Materials

Oil

WILD PARTY
WILD PARTY

WILD PARTY

By Jose Clemente Orozco

Located in Santa Monica, CA

JOSE CLEMENTE OROZCO (Mexican 1883 – 1949) WILD PARTY 1935 (Orozco 28) (aka - Borrachos en la cama quebrada, Borracho’s & Fin de Fiesta - Miseria) Lithograph signed and numbered 91...

Category

1930s Realist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Antique American Signed Coastal Landscape Hudson River School Framed Seascape
Antique American Signed Coastal Landscape Hudson River School Framed Seascape

Antique American Signed Coastal Landscape Hudson River School Framed Seascape

Located in Buffalo, NY

Antique American coastal seascape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Dated Framed. Measuring: 21 by 25 inches overall, and 12 by 16 painting alone. Excellent condition, ready to ...

Category

1890s Realist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique English Watercolor - Countryside Landscape with Cows
Antique English Watercolor - Countryside Landscape with Cows

Antique English Watercolor - Countryside Landscape with Cows

Located in Soquel, CA

Antique English Watercolor - Countryside Landscape with Cows Miniature landscape with two cows in the foreground, signed "J.M. Myall 1910." One cow sits on the ground of a rolling h...

Category

1910s Realist Art

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

River Landscape with Highland Cows & Sheep in the Scottish Mountains
River Landscape with Highland Cows & Sheep in the Scottish Mountains

River Landscape with Highland Cows & Sheep in the Scottish Mountains

By Wendy Reeves

Located in Preston, GB

River Landscape with Highland Cows & Sheep in the Scottish Mountains by 20th Century British Artist, Wendy Reeves. Original, Oil on canvas, Signed Art measures 24 x 14 inches Frame measures 30 x 20 inches This painting depicts a serene landscape featuring a river flowing through a valley surrounded by majestic mountains. The scene is bathed in soft, natural light, with clouds partially covering the peaks, creating a misty atmosphere. In the foreground, three cows are grazing near the riverbank, adding a pastoral element to the tranquil setting. The lush greenery and rocky outcrops contribute to the overall idyllic and peaceful ambiance. The painting is framed in a vintage gold-colored frame, enhancing its classic and timeless appeal. Wendy Reeves garnered acclaim for her Scottish Highland and Lakeland paintings. Born in 1944 in Ewell, Surrey, she took to her father Gordon’s craft, deciding early on that she would be a painter. Prior to her famous paintings of the British Isles, artist Wendy Reeves painted scenes from a trip she made to Spain when she was 21. It was during this time that her dream of following in her father’s footsteps became a reality, and when she returned to England she cemented her name as an artist. Wendy Reeves' paintings showcase her talent with natural landscapes and the wildlife that inhabits them. Her work often features ochre and pink lights...

Category

Late 20th Century Realist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Paternity Realist Painting, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 1980s, Unframed
Paternity Realist Painting, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 1980s, Unframed

Paternity Realist Painting, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 1980s, Unframed

By José Luis Fuentetaja

Located in Sitges, Barcelona

Frameless. Is born in Madrid on the 21st july 1951. After attending primary school, he starts to grow an enormous tendency for drawing. At the age of 14 he begins to work in advertising and attends to the Vallecas school of arts. At the age of 14 he travels to Switzerland and in Geneve he gets intensly into painting and decides to dedicate himself only to it. When he returns to Spain he enrolls Arts Studies, and at the begining of summer '66, he visits Sitges, where he'll come back year after year and where ultimately he'll set his home. At this time he starts selling his painting in the flea market in Madrid and later in Sitges, setting himself on the street, thus completing his studies and making it economically. While he's in Madrid he recives lessons by Pedro Mozas at Bellas Artes and starts to learn profoundly about painting. In 1969 he starts painting portraits in the streets. In Sitges he creates, with other friends, a great artistic atmosphere in the Paseo de la Ribera, by the sea, that today still exists. He starts travelling through Europe, visiting and painting in Paris, London and Amsterdam. In the middle of this bohemian epoque, he moves to the Cannary Islands during the winters for 5 years in a row, he moves in the Parque de Santa Catalina "Las Palmas de Gran Canaria" where he works and meet all sorts of people in the streets, which later would mark his pictoric line. He becomes friend with Sidney Nagley in 1969, who organizes his first exhibition in Toronto, Canada. Afterwards he'll leave his studies and start painting exclusively in his studio. He gathers his first exhibition in the Ateneu of Barcelona in 1970. He befriends with the art critic of La Vanguardia, Fernando Gutierrez and the Count of Caralt orders him a set of illustration for a new edition of Garcia Lorcas Romancero Gitano. His first exhibition in a commercial gallery is done in the Majestic Gallery in Barcelona with a gorgeous collection of nudity drawings. He achieves huge success and for some years he affords his painting thanks to those drawings. During a period in Madrid, Mr Ponce de León, a consul in the Ministry of Exterior Affairs grants him with bachelor degree to study in the prestigious Academia de España in Rome. However, he can't accept it due to militar service obligations. Some days later, before joining the ranks he opens in the Cuatre Gats (Palma de Mallorca) with hiperrealist pieces that already then he presented as the first painter in that city, that later would become a fashion in 1973. After this period he meets José Maria Gudiol who advises positively. Since then, the intense work and the fight for daily improvement that has become the trademark of his life. The seek of styles and situations, the journeys through Europe always aware of all the tendencies that have in the art line that we can see nowadays. At his more than fifty years given to paint, his individual exhibitions beat the 100, his artwork is highly appreciated and valued in the complex market of art. In October 1982 hi makes his first exhibition in Tarragona. In the catalogue, writing of the unforgettable Fernando Gutierrez, he says "Fuentetaja is an artist of character and exceptional upbringing with a masterly knowledge of technique and resourses, and personality completely uncommon to the dimension of his sensitivity, as the richness of his deep and bloomed liricism. A judgement as accurate as foreseeing for the future outstanding of the artist, in where his paint soared through different phases mantaining an unquestionable quality. Lines, cubist, expressionist and hiperrealist till his current realism, in the middle of his creative maturity. Jose Luis Fuentetaja...

Category

1980s Realist Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

The House of Shango — African American artist
The House of Shango — African American artist

The House of Shango — African American artist

By Samella Lewis

Located in Myrtle Beach, SC

Samella Sanders Lewis, 'The House of Shango', lithograph, 1992, edition 60. Signed, dated, titled, and numbered '31/60' in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression, on Arches cream wove paper; the full sheet with margins (1 1/4 to 3 1/2 inches), in excellent condition. Image size 24 x 18 inches (610 x 457 mm); sheet size 30 inches x 22 1/4 inches (762 x 565 mm). Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. Impressions of this work are held in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Scripps College. ABOUT THIS WORK “The title of this piece is an unmistakable harkening to African roots. Shango is a religious practice with origins in Yoruba (Nigerian) belief, deifying a god of thunder by the same name. Shango has been adopted in the Caribbean, most notably in Trinidad and Tobago, a fact that underscores the importance of transnationalism to Samella Lewis’s piece. Her work often grapples with issues of race in the U.S., and The House of Shango is no exception. Through a reliance on the gradual transformation of Shango—one that took place across continents and time—Lewis’s piece forms a powerful link between black Americans and their African and Caribbean counterparts. The figure depicted in the piece appears to emerge, quite literally, from the house of Shango. Given the roots and transformative process of the religion, The House of Shango can draw attention to the historical intersections to which black American culture is indebted.” —Laura Woods, Scripps College, Ruth Chander Williamson Gallery, Collection Highlights, 2018 ABOUT THE ARTIST Samella Lewis’ lifelong career as an artist, art historian, critic, curator, collector, and advocate of African American art has helped empower generations of artists in the United States and worldwide, earning her the designation “the Godmother of African American art.” Born and raised in Jim Crow era New Orleans, Lewis began her art education at Dillard University in 1941, transferring to Hampton University in Virginia, where she earned her B. A. and master's degrees. She completed her master's and a doctorate in art history and cultural anthropology at Ohio State University in 1951, becoming the first female African American to earn a doctorate in fine art and art history. Lewis taught art at Morgan State University while completing her doctorate. She became the first Chair of the Fine Arts Department at Florida A&M University in 1953. That same year Lewis also became the first African American to convene the National Conference of African American artists held at Florida A&M University. She was a professor at the State University of New York, California State University, Long Beach, and at Scripps College in Claremont, California. Lewis co-founded, with Bernie Casey, the Contemporary Crafts Gallery in Los Angeles in 1970. In 1973, she served on the selection committee for the exhibition BLACKS: USA: 1973 held at the New York Cultural Center. Samella Lewis's 1969 catalog 'Black Artists on Art', featured accomplished black artists typically overlooked in mainstream art galleries. She said of the book, "I wanted to make a chronology of African American artists, and artists of African descent, to document our history. The historians weren't doing it. It was really about the movement." From the 1960s through the 1970s, her work, which included lithographs, linocuts, and serigraphs, reflected her concerns with the values of human dignity, democracy, and freedom of expression. Between 1969 and 70, Lewis and E.J. Montgomery were consultants for a groundbreaking exhibition at the Oakland Public L designed to create greater awareness of African American history and art. Lewis was the founder of the International Review of African American Art in 1975. In 1976, she founded the Museum of African-American Art with a group of artistic, academic, business, and community leaders in Los Angeles, California. Lewis, the museum’s senior curator, organized exhibitions and developed new ways of educating the public about African American art. She celebrated African American art as an 'art of experience’ inspired by the artists’ lives. And she espoused the concept of African American art as an 'art of tradition', urging museums to explore the African roots of African American art. In 1984, Lewis produced an extensive monograph on Elizabeth Catlett, her beloved mentor at Dillard University. Lewis has been collecting art since 1942, focusing primarily on the WPA era and work created during the Harlem Renaissance. Pieces from her collection were acquired by the Hampton University Museum in Virginia, the world’s earliest collection of African American fine art...

Category

1990s Realist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Girl Sitting On Beach
Girl Sitting On Beach

Girl Sitting On Beach

By Vincente Esparza

Located in Atlanta, GA

Item is in excellent condition and has only been displayed in a gallery setting. Item includes frame Vincente Esparza was born in Graus, Huesca in 1946. In 1967 he began his studie...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Art

Materials

Board, Oil

Photorealistic Ocean Painting, Surf and Sand by Todd Kenyon
Photorealistic Ocean Painting, Surf and Sand by Todd Kenyon

Photorealistic Ocean Painting, Surf and Sand by Todd Kenyon

Located in Laguna Beach, CA

Todd Kenyon "Surf and Sand" Giclee Print on Canvas 40 x 67 inches 42 x 69 inches framed size __________________________ JoAnne Artman Gallery is pleased to present Endless Blue, a c...

Category

2010s Realist Art

Materials

Canvas, Archival Pigment

Sunflowers in a Mediterranean Landscape, 20th Century Oil on Canvas
Sunflowers in a Mediterranean Landscape, 20th Century Oil on Canvas

Sunflowers in a Mediterranean Landscape, 20th Century Oil on Canvas

Located in Preston, GB

Sunflowers in a Mediterranean Landscape Art measures 24 x 20 inches Frame measures 26 x 22 inches Sunlit Reverie Among the Sunflowers Original oil painting by Vinny (inspired by ...

Category

20th Century Realist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Argonauts. Llimited edition: EA-II. Bronze. 59x38x10 cm
Argonauts. Llimited edition: EA-II. Bronze. 59x38x10 cm

Argonauts. Llimited edition: EA-II. Bronze. 59x38x10 cm

Located in Riga, LV

Sergey Oganov was born in 1974 in the family of the famous Belarusian sculptor Lev Oganov. Sergey began his first steps in the world of art while still being a schoolboy, helping hi...

Category

2010s Realist Art

Materials

Bronze, Metal

"Astana. Expo Plaza"
"Astana. Expo Plaza"

"Astana. Expo Plaza"

By Oleksandr Khrapachov

Located in Edinburgh, GB

Astana. Expo Plaza When architecture becomes a dream come true Before you is evidence of the meeting of classical painting with the futuristic genius of architecture. In 2018, Alex...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Art

Materials

Oil

New York City Painting Michael Budden Evening On Broadway St James & Sardis
New York City Painting Michael Budden Evening On Broadway St James & Sardis

New York City Painting Michael Budden Evening On Broadway St James & Sardis

By Michael Budden

Located in Chesterfield, NJ

Evening On Broadway, St. James & Sardi's Image is 10 x 8 unframed, 15.5 x 13.5 framed. An acrylic painting on canvas panel by award winning contemporary artist Michael Budden that...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Art

Materials

Acrylic

Flowers
Flowers

Flowers

By Katarina Joys

Located in London, London

Abstract contemporary floral decor Blue flowers still-life. Original floral abstract expressionism oil painting on canvas. XXXL Extra-large original artwork. Artist: Katarina Joy...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist Art

Materials

Canvas, Cotton Canvas, Oil

Day Dreaming; Miao Girl
Day Dreaming; Miao Girl

Day Dreaming; Miao Girl

By Mian Situ

Located in Pasadena, CA

Provenance On consignment to the gallery from a private collector in Newport Beach, California. Signed "Mian Situ" on lower left Artist Statement "Miao people are one of the larges...

Category

2010s Realist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Panel

Pearfect in Pink
Pearfect in Pink

Pearfect in Pink

By Bela Bacsi

Located in Pasadena, CA

Provenance Acquired by the gallery directly from the artist Exhibitions Exhibited at the Los Angeles Art Show 2014, January 15-19, 2014

Category

Early 2000s Realist Art

Materials

Marble

The Windmill
The Windmill

The Windmill

By Rembrandt van Rijn

Located in San Francisco, CA

This artwork titled "The Windmill" 1641 is an etching on paper After Rembrandt Van Rijn, 1606-1669, plate engraved By French renown engraver Charles Armand Durand, 1831-1905. Signatu...

Category

17th Century Realist Art

Materials

Etching

Realist art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Realist art available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add art created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, purple, orange, red and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Slim Aarons, Michael Budden, Daniel Pollera, and Su Yu. 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 Realist art, so small editions measuring 0.1 inches across are also available.