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Surrealist Art

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SURREALIST STYLE

In the wake of World War I’s ravaging of Europe, artists delved into the unconscious mind to confront and grapple with this reality. Poet and critic André Breton, a leader of the Surrealist movement who authored the 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, called this approach “a violent reaction against the impoverishment and sterility of thought processes that resulted from centuries of rationalism.” Surrealist art emerged in the 1920s with dreamlike and uncanny imagery guided by a variety of techniques such as automatic drawing, which can be likened to a stream of consciousness, to channel psychological experiences.

Although Surrealism was a groundbreaking approach for European art, its practitioners were inspired by Indigenous art and ancient mysticism for reenvisioning how sculptures, paintings, prints, performance art and more could respond to the unsettled world around them.

Surrealist artists were also informed by the Dada movement, which originated in 1916 Zurich and embraced absurdity over the logic that had propelled modernity into violence. Some of the Surrealists had witnessed this firsthand, such as Max Ernst, who served in the trenches during World War I, and Salvador Dalí, whose otherworldly paintings and other work responded to the dawning civil war in Spain.

Other key artists associated with the revolutionary art and literary movement included Man Ray, Joan Miró, René Magritte, Yves Tanguy, Frida Kahlo and Meret Oppenheim, all of whom had a distinct perspective on reimagining reality and freeing the unconscious mind from the conventions and restrictions of rational thought. Pablo Picasso showed some of his works in “La Peinture Surréaliste” — the first collective exhibition of Surrealist painting — which opened at Paris’s Galerie Pierre in November of 1925. (Although Magritte is best known as one of the visual Surrealist movement’s most talented practitioners, his famous 1943 painting, The Fifth Season, can be interpreted as a formal break from Surrealism.)

The outbreak of World War II led many in the movement to flee Europe for the Americas, further spreading Surrealism abroad. Generations of modern and contemporary artists were subsequently influenced by the richly symbolic and unearthly imagery of Surrealism, from Joseph Cornell to Arshile Gorky.

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Style: Surrealist
Surreal San Francisco in a Pen and Ink Drawing
Surreal San Francisco in a Pen and Ink Drawing

Surreal San Francisco in a Pen and Ink Drawing

Located in San Francisco, CA

This signed drawing, "Low Fog" by American artist Justin Murray (1912–1987), features a lone caricatured man smoking a pipe amid rolling fog, with distant hills, buildings, and powe...

Category

Mid-20th Century Surrealist Art

Materials

Paper, Ink, Pen

TIE Fighter Beatles Large Oversize Pop Art Print Signed Limited Edition
TIE Fighter Beatles Large Oversize Pop Art Print Signed Limited Edition

TIE Fighter Beatles Large Oversize Pop Art Print Signed Limited Edition

By BATIK

Located in London, GB

TIE Fighter Beatles by B A T I K Pop art work featuring the Fab Four Paul McCartney , George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon running away from Star Wars TIE fighters chasing...

Category

2010s Surrealist Art

Materials

Black and White, Archival Pigment

In Memory of Dante Figurative Surrealism Original oil Painting
In Memory of Dante Figurative Surrealism Original oil Painting

In Memory of Dante Figurative Surrealism Original oil Painting

By Ashot Yan

Located in Granada Hills, CA

Figurative Surrealism Original Painting Artist: Ashot Yan Work: Original Oil Painting, Handmade Artwork, One of a Kind Medium: Oil on Linen, Year: 2023 Style: Portrait Surrealism, T...

Category

2010s Surrealist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Musicians. By Constantin Selihanov. Bronze.
Musicians. By Constantin Selihanov. Bronze.

Musicians. By Constantin Selihanov. Bronze.

Located in Riga, LV

Konstantin Vladimirovich Selikhanov (born June 18, 1967, Minsk) is a Belarusian sculptor, artist, and graphic artist, the grandson of sculptor S. I. Selikhanov. The alley leading to ...

Category

Early 2000s Surrealist Art

Materials

Bronze

original lithograph

original lithograph

By Julio de Diego

Located in Henderson, NV

Medium: original lithograph. This lithograph was printed in 1953 for the "Improvisations" portfolio, published by the Artists Equity Association of New York on the occasion of the 19...

Category

1950s Surrealist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Large Scale Surrealist Oil on Canvas, 'At the Watering Hole'.
Large Scale Surrealist Oil on Canvas, 'At the Watering Hole'.

Large Scale Surrealist Oil on Canvas, 'At the Watering Hole'.

Located in Cotignac, FR

Large late 20th century oil on canvas of animals at the watering hole by British artist Derek Carruthers. Signed to the bottom right. A magical, highly colourful and energetic paint...

Category

Late 20th Century Surrealist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Les Songes Drolatiques de Pantagruel
Les Songes Drolatiques de Pantagruel

Les Songes Drolatiques de Pantagruel

By Salvador Dalí­

Located in San Francisco, CA

Artist: Salvador Dali (Spanish surrealist, 1904-1989) Title: Les Songes Drolatiques De Pantagruel Year: 1973 Medium: Lithograph Edition: Inscribed E.A (Epreuve d' Artiste) i...

Category

1970s Surrealist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Pablo Picasso, L'Abreuvoir from La Suite Saltimbanques
Pablo Picasso, L'Abreuvoir from La Suite Saltimbanques

Pablo Picasso, L'Abreuvoir from La Suite Saltimbanques

By Pablo Picasso

Located in Chatsworth, CA

This piece is an original drypoint created by Pablo Picasso in 1905 and printed by Ambroise Vollard after steel-facing in 1913. It is from a series entitled La Suite des Saltimbanque...

Category

1910s Surrealist Art

Materials

Drypoint

"L'été"

"L'été"

By Joan Miró

Located in Henderson, NV

Medium: lithograph and pochoir. Catalogue reference: Dupin 1310, Benhoura 396. This lithograph was printed in 1938 at the atelier Mourlot and published in Paris by Teriade for the ar...

Category

1930s Surrealist Art

Materials

Lithograph

(after) Marino Marini - "Composition" pochoir

(after) Marino Marini - "Composition" pochoir

By Marino Marini

Located in Henderson, NV

Medium: pochoir (after the lithograph). Printed by the atelier of Daniel Jacomet, and published in Paris in 1955 by Heinz Berggruen. The image measures 5 x 3 1/2 inches (130 x 90 mm)...

Category

1950s Surrealist Art

Materials

Lithograph, Stencil

Max Ernst Dada Surrealist Hand Signed Lithograph Poster for a Jewish Museum
Max Ernst Dada Surrealist Hand Signed Lithograph Poster for a Jewish Museum

Max Ernst Dada Surrealist Hand Signed Lithograph Poster for a Jewish Museum

By Max Ernst

Located in Surfside, FL

Max Ernst (German, American, 1891-1976) Color lithograph Titled, "Poster For The Jewish Museum" 1966 Hand signed lower right Hand numbered HC I/XVII Dimensions: 34.75 x 28.5 sight 25 X 19.25 Max Ernst (German 1891 – 1976) was a German-born painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism in Europe. He had no formal artistic training, but his experimental attitude toward the making of art resulted in his invention of frottage—a technique that uses pencil rubbings of textured objects and relief surfaces to create images—and grattage, an analogous technique in which paint is scraped across canvas to reveal the imprints of the objects placed beneath. Max Ernst showed for the first time in 1912 at the Galerie Feldman in Cologne. At the Sonderbund exhibition of that year in Cologne he saw the work of Paul Cezanne, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. In 1913 he met Guillaume Apollinaire and Robert Delaunay and traveled to Paris. Ernst participated that same year in the Erste deutsche Herbstsalon. In 1914 he met Jean Arp in Cologne who was to become a lifelong friend. In 1921 Ernst exhibited at the Galerie au Sans Pareil in Paris. He was involved in Surrealist activities in the early 1920s with Paul Eluard and André Breton. His work was exhibited that year together with that of the Das Junge Rheinland group, at Galerie Feldman in Cologne, and then in several group exhibitions in 1913. In his paintings of this period, Ernst adopted an ironic style that juxtaposed grotesque elements alongside Cubist and Expressionist motifs. Ernst fought in world war I. Several German Expressionist painters died in action during the war, among them August Macke and Franz Marc. In 1918, Ernst was demobilised and returned to Cologne. He soon married art history student Luise Straus, of Jewish ancestry, whom he had met in 1914. In 1919, he visited Paul Klee in Munich and studied paintings by Giorgio de Chirico. In the same year, inspired by de Chirico and mail-order catalogues, teaching-aide manuals and similar sources, he produced his first collage works (notably Fiat modes, a portfolio of lithographs), a technique which later dominated his artistic pursuits. Also in 1919, Ernst, social activist Johannes Theodor Baargeld and several colleagues founded the Cologne Dada group. In 1919–20, Ernst and Baargeld published various short-lived magazines such as Der Strom, die Schammade and organised Dada exhibitions. Ernst and Luise's son Ulrich Jimmy Ernst was born on 24 June 1920; he later would also become a painter. In 1921, he met Paul Éluard, who became a lifelong friend. Éluard bought two of Ernst's paintings (Celebes and Oedipus Rex) and selected six collages to illustrate his poetry collection Répétitions. A year later the two collaborated on Les malheurs des immortels and then with André Breton, whom Ernst met in 1921, on the magazine Littérature. Ernst developed a fascination with birds which was prevalent in his work. His alter ego in paintings, which he called Loplop, was a bird. He suggested that this alter-ego was an extension of himself stemming from an early confusion of birds and humans. In 1927, he married Marie-Berthe Aurenche and it is thought his relationship with her may have inspired the erotic subject matter of The Kiss and other works of that year. He collaborated with Joan Miro on designs for Sergei Diaghilev Ballet that same year. The following year the artist collaborated with Salvador Dali and the Surrealist Luis Bunuel on the film L'Age d'or. His first American show was held at the Julien Levy Gallery, New York, in 1932. In 1936 Ernst was represented in Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Ernst began to sculpt in 1934 and spent time with Alberto Giacometti. In 1938, the American heiress and artistic patron Peggy Guggenheim acquired a number of Max Ernst's works, which she displayed in her new gallery in London. Ernst and Guggenheim were married from 1942 to 1946. In September 1939, the outbreak of World War II caused Ernst, being German, to be interned as an "undesirable foreigner" in Camp des Milles, near Aix-en-Provence, along with fellow surrealist, Hans Bellmer, who had recently emigrated to Paris. He had been living with his lover and fellow surrealist painter, Leonora Carrington who, not knowing whether he would return, saw no option but to sell their house to repay their debts and leave for Spain. Thanks to the intercession of Paul Éluard and other friends, including the journalist Varian Fry, he was released a few weeks later. Soon after the German occupation of France, he was arrested again, this time by the Gestapo, but managed to escape to America with the help of Fry and Peggy Guggenheim, a member of a wealthy American art collecting family. Ernst and Peggy Guggenheim arrived in the United States in 1941 and were married at the end of the year. Along with other artists and friends (Marcel Duchamp and Marc Chagall) who had fled from the war and lived in New York City, Ernst helped inspire the development of abstract expressionism. His marriage to Guggenheim did not last. In October 1946 he married American surrealist painter Dorothea Tanning in a double ceremony with Man Ray and Juliet P. Browner in Beverly Hills, California. The couple made their home in Sedona, Arizona from 1946 to 1953. He and Tanning hosted intellectuals and European artists such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Yves Tanguy. Sedona proved an inspiration for the artists and for Ernst, who compiled his book Beyond Painting and completed his sculptural masterpiece Capricorn while living in Sedona. As a result of the book and its publicity, Ernst began to achieve financial success. From the 1950s he lived mainly in France. In 1954 he was awarded the Grand Prize for painting at the Venice Biennale. In 2005, "Max Ernst: A Retrospective" opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Contemporary artist tapestries have had their true believers. He produced a tapestry for Gloria Ross...

Category

1960s Surrealist Art

Materials

Lithograph

"Opera"
"Opera"

"Opera"

By Natalia Kolpakova 1

Located in Edinburgh, GB

Opera is a fantastical silk print by Natalia Kolpakova, featuring a regal Saint Bernard and fox in Chinese opera garb amid pagodas, optical illusions, and celestial motifs on vibrant...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Surrealist Art

Materials

Silk, Mixed Media, Digital

Three Stories, Portrait Surrealism Original oil Painting
Three Stories, Portrait Surrealism Original oil Painting

Three Stories, Portrait Surrealism Original oil Painting

By Ashot Yan

Located in Granada Hills, CA

Figurative Surrealism Original Painting Artist: Ashot Yan Work: Original Oil Painting, Handmade Artwork, One of a Kind Medium: Oil on Linen, Year: 2023 Style: Figurative Surrealism, ...

Category

2010s Surrealist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Marc Chagall - Original Lithograph
Marc Chagall - Original Lithograph

Marc Chagall - Original Lithograph

By Marc Chagall

Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH

Marc Chagall Original Lithograph 1963 Dimensions: 32 x 24 cm Unsigned, as published in "Chagall Lithographe 1957-1962. VOLUME II" Edition of several thousand Condition : Excellent M...

Category

1960s Surrealist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Dante and Beatrice - Woodcut - 1963
Dante and Beatrice - Woodcut - 1963

Dante and Beatrice - Woodcut - 1963

By Salvador Dalí­

Located in Roma, IT

Dante and Beatrice -  "The Divine Comedy" - Song 29 -  Purgatory is a woodcut print realized in 1963 for a series illustrating the Medieval poem of the "Divine Comedy" by Dante Aligh...

Category

1960s Surrealist Art

Materials

Woodcut

original etching for Paroles Peintes

original etching for Paroles Peintes

By Wifredo Lam

Located in Henderson, NV

Medium: original color etching. Printed in 1965 for the "Paroles Peintes II" portfolio, and published in Paris by Lazar-Vernet. This magnificent, rich impression is one of 150 printe...

Category

1960s Surrealist Art

Materials

Etching

A source - XXI Century, Contemporary Acrylic Architecture Painting, Colorful
A source - XXI Century, Contemporary Acrylic Architecture Painting, Colorful

A source - XXI Century, Contemporary Acrylic Architecture Painting, Colorful

By Marta Rynkiewicz

Located in Warsaw, PL

Marta Rynkiewicz is a young Polish artist born in 1983. She studied painting with Professor Henryk Czenik and graphic arts with Professor Jerzy Krechowicz, at the Faculty of Paintin...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Surrealist Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Villosa

Dan QuintanaVillosa

$4,608Sale Price|20% Off

Villosa

Located in Dallas, TX

This work was featured at ComplexCon 2019 - November 2nd and 3rd in Long Beach, CA.

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Surrealist Art

Materials

Wood, Oil

Surrealist art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Surrealist 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, orange, purple, red and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Salvador Dalí, Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, and Leonor Fini. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Lithograph and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Surrealist art, so small editions measuring 1 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 $1 and tops out at $1,450,000, while the average work sells for $1,426.