C. Clyde Squires On Sale

C. Clyde Squires was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1883, the son of a Utah pioneer barber, who was a friend of Brigham Young and son of a barber-stonecutter. Squires apprenticed to a Salt Lake City engraver. At the age of 15 years, he had done layouts for the local newspaper. When he was 18 years old, Squires went to New York City to study art. After a year, he worked as a commercial artist, drawing fashion heads in the morning and attending the New York School of Art in the afternoon and evening. Squires was a pupil of Robert Henri and Kenneth Hayes Miller and received advice from DuMont and Pyle. He died in Great Neck, Long Island, New York, in 1970. He was a romantic illustrator for national magazines and also created covers for pulp westerns. Squires was a member of the society of illustrators in New York.

Figurative art, as opposed to abstract art, retains features from the observable world in its representational depictions of subject matter. Most commonly, figurative paintings reference and explore the human body, but they can also include landscapes, architecture, plants and animals — all portrayed with realism.

While the oldest figurative art dates back tens of thousands of years to cave wall paintings, figurative works made from observation became especially prominent in the early Renaissance. Artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance masters created naturalistic representations of their subjects.

Pablo Picasso is lauded for laying the foundation for modern figurative art in the 1920s. Although abstracted, this work held a strong connection to representing people and other subjects. Other famous figurative artists include Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. Figurative art in the 20th century would span such diverse genres as Expressionism, Pop art and Surrealism.

Today, a number of figural artists — such as Sedrick Huckaby, Daisy Patton and Eileen Cooper — are making art that uses the human body as its subject.

Because figurative art represents subjects from the real world, natural colors are common in these paintings. A piece of figurative art can be an exciting starting point for setting a tone and creating a color palette in a room.

Browse an extensive collection of figurative paintings on 1stDibs.