Arthur B. Davies On Sale

Born in Utica, NY in 1962, Arthur Davies sold his first sculpture — a small, detailed sailboat carved with a pocketknife — at the age of 12 for $25. After the 1913 Armory Show, Davies began to regularly cast small bronze sculptures and reliefs from wood carvings, and later from clay. These pieces were carved from life on occasion but more often from sketches. As Bennard B. Perlman notes in The Lives, Loves, and Art of Arthur B. Davies (1999), "experimentation in a three-dimensional medium was akin to his use of abstraction in painting, except that color was eliminated, allowing him to concentrate on the angular break up of shapes without the added complexity of considering hue, value, and intensity." Davies exhibited internationally, saw his work enter major public and private collections, and at the time of his death, the Metropolitan Museum of Art organized a large memorial exhibition. Today Davies’ artworks can be found in numerous public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Art Institute of Chicago; National Gallery of Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Bring energy and an array of welcome colors and textures into your space by decorating with figurative fine-art prints and works on paper.

Figurative art stands in contrast to abstract art, which is more expressive than representational. The oldest-known work of figurative art is a figurative painting — specifically, a rock painting of an animal made over 40,000 years ago in Borneo. This remnant of a remote past has long faded, but its depiction of a cattle-like creature in elegant ocher markings endures.

Since then, figurative art has evolved significantly as it continues to represent the world, including a breadth of works on paper, including printmaking. This includes woodcuts, which are a type of relief print with perennial popularity among collectors. The artist carves into a block and applies ink to the raised surface, which is then pressed onto paper. There are also planographic prints, which use metal plates, stones or other flat surfaces as their base. The artist will often draw on the surface with grease crayon and then apply ink to those markings. Lithographs are a common version of planographic prints.

Figurative art printmaking was especially popular during the height of the Pop art movement, and this kind of work can be seen in artist Andy Warhol’s extensive use of photographic silkscreen printing. Everyday objects, logos and scenes were given a unique twist, whether in the style of a comic strip or in the use of neon colors.

Explore an impressive collection of figurative art prints for sale on 1stDibs and read about how to arrange your wall art.