Dana Bell

Robert Craig Kauffman was born on March 31, 1932, in Los Angeles. He started painting regularly at age seven and went to the University of Southern California to study architecture in 1950. But art soon won out over architecture and he transferred to the University of California Los Angeles, to study painting. He earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees there. A breakthrough came in the early 1960s, when he experimented with painting on glass, but found it too fragile. He then painted on flat acrylic plastic. His next inspiration came from the plastic packaging increasingly used to wrap merchandise. He sought out craftsmen at commercial factories to learn the technique, Time magazine reported in 1968. The results were several series of three-dimensional wall hangings. Some were inspired by large plastic fruit clusters on the wall of a doughnut shop he frequented in Los Angeles. These lozenge-shaped reliefs were sometimes called "bubbles." Barbara Rose, in a catalog essay for an exhibition at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art in 1967, wrote, "Shaping the brittle sheet plastic into a series of voluptuous curves, Kauffman achieves a kind of abstract eroticism that is purely visual." Mr. Kauffman's work was shown in countless exhibitions and many one-man shows. It has been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others. In 2006, one of Mr. Kauffman's reliefs fell from a wall of the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, where it was part of an exhibition titled "Los Angeles: Birth of an Art Capital, 1955–85." It shattered. After storms of publicity, the Pompidou provided technical help and money to make a new version. Mr. Kauffman was married several times. He is survived by his daughters from his marriage to Dana Kauffman, from whom he was separated: Wilhelmina, Vida Rose and Georgia Kauffman. When they started in the 1960s, he and his artistic compatriots did not foresee a legacy, much less earning an income, Larry Bell, a prominent artist in the group, said in an interview on Wednesday. "The troops sort of banded together to be our audience," he said. "Every once in a while, we'd sell something and have a party."

Beginning in the early 20th century, abstract art became a leading style of modernism. Rather than portray the world in a way that represented reality, as had been the dominating style of Western art in the previous centuries, abstract paintings, prints and sculptures are marked by a shift to geometric forms, gestural shapes and experimentation with color to express ideas, subject matter and scenes.

Although abstract art flourished in the early 1900s, propelled by movements like Fauvism and Cubism, it was rooted in the 19th century. In the 1840s, J.M.W. Turner emphasized light and motion for atmospheric paintings in which concrete details were blurred, and Paul Cézanne challenged traditional expectations of perspective in the 1890s.

Some of the earliest abstract artists — Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint — expanded on these breakthroughs while using vivid colors and forms to channel spiritual concepts. Painter Piet Mondrian, a Dutch pioneer of the art movement, explored geometric abstraction partly owing to his belief in Theosophy, which is grounded in a search for higher spiritual truths and embraces philosophers of the Renaissance period and medieval mystics. Black Square, a daringly simple 1913 work by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, was a watershed statement on creating art that was free “from the dead weight of the real world,” as he later wrote.

Surrealism in the 1920s, led by artists such as Salvador Dalí, Meret Oppenheim and others, saw painters creating abstract pieces in order to connect to the subconscious. When Abstract Expressionism emerged in New York during the mid-20th century, it similarly centered on the process of creation, in which Helen Frankenthaler’s expressive “soak-stain” technique, Jackson Pollock’s drips of paint, and Mark Rothko’s planes of color were a radical new type of abstraction.

Conceptual art, Pop art, Hard-Edge painting and many other movements offered fresh approaches to abstraction that continued into the 21st century, with major contemporary artists now exploring it, including Anish Kapoor, Mark Bradford, El Anatsui and Julie Mehretu.

Find original abstract paintings, sculptures, prints and other art on 1stDibs.

Bring audacious experiments with color and textures to your living room, dining room or home office. Abstract paintings, large or small, will stand out in your space, encouraging conversation and introducing a museum-like atmosphere that’s welcoming and conducive to creating memorable gatherings.

Abstract art has origins in 19th-century Europe, but it came into its own as a significant movement during the 20th century. Early practitioners of abstraction included Wassily Kandinsky, although painters were exploring nonfigurative art prior to the influential Russian artist’s efforts, which were inspired by music and religion. Abstract painters endeavored to create works that didn’t focus on the outside world’s conventional subjects, and even when artists depicted realistic subjects, they worked in an abstract mode to do so.

In 1940s-era New York City, a group of painters working in the abstract mode created radical work that looked to European avant-garde artists as well as to the art of ancient cultures, prioritizing improvisation, immediacy and direct personal expression. While they were never formally affiliated with one another, we know them today as Abstract Expressionists.

The male contingent of the Abstract Expressionists, which includes Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell, is frequently cited in discussing leading figures of this internationally influential postwar art movement. However, the women of Abstract Expressionism, such as Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell and others, were equally involved in the art world of the time. Sexism, family obligations and societal pressures contributed to a long history of their being overlooked, but the female Abstract Expressionists experimented vigorously, developed their own style and produced significant bodies of work.

Draw your guests into abstract oil paintings across different eras and countries of origin. On 1stDibs, you’ll find an expansive range of abstract paintings along with a guide on how to arrange your wonderful new wall art.

If you’re working with a small living space, a colorful, oversize work can create depth in a given room, but there isn’t any need to overwhelm your interior with a sprawling pièce de résistance. Colorful abstractions of any size can pop against a white wall in your living room, but if you’re working with a colored backdrop, you may wish to stick to colors that complement the decor that is already in the space. Alternatively, let your painting make a statement on its own, regardless of its surroundings, or group it, gallery-style, with other works.