Dan Rupe On Sale

Dan Rupe, a supremely talented artist as bright and dazzling as his paintings. At one time in his life, living in Chicago, Rupe painted from photographs. One day Rupe ventured into his garden, set up his easel and went to work, he never painted from a photograph again. Why, when he could paint life? Rupe went from the studio to the garden, to the street. The experience Rupe got painting and the people, all sorts of people from all walks of life, their interaction, caused him to value living, being an artist he was safe to talk to, to approach. Rupe was part of the world, part of street theatre. Rupe was born in Elkhart, Indiana. His father, although born in a log cabin in western Kentucky, rose from poverty to become a surgeon. He worked at the hospital. He worked all the time. Rupe was raised as a Mennonite. They were at the World Conference, they had chrome on their bumpers and zippers. They were a close family, lived out in the country and had a large garden. His mom canned everything, not because of money, but because this is how you do it. It’s a midwestern thing. Rupe had chores to do and gained a work ethic. Rupe still gets up early to do his work, he trusts it, his mind is clearest, his emotional slate is cleanest in the early morning. The daughter of a neighboring farmer was in her 30’s, a beatnik and an artist. She gave Rupe art lessons; working in pastels and soap carving, he was six. Rupe had three heroes growing up, “Amelia Erhardt, because she was so strong she got lost. Georgia O’Keefe, nothing could stop her and Marilyn Monroe, her beauty could not stop her.” Rupe’s mother had a beautiful singing voice and urged him to take music lessons. At 11, Rupe got serious about oil paints. Turning 16, Rupe decided to be a painter instead of a musician. Rupe’s father took him for a drive and told him how difficult it was going to be making a living from my art. Rupe thought it wouldn’t be any more difficult than music. The following year Rupe went off to Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan with his parent’s blessing. Always one to seek out truth, at 17, Rupe went to his family and his church and told them he was homosexual, They did not reject him, which amazed him. Fond affection passes over Rupe’s eyes, pride in his family for their courage and willingness to embrace truth. At this time Rupe also made a clear shift in his painting, He eliminated black and earth tones from him palette. Rupe saw murky, muddy paintings and students struggling to get clear images and not understanding why. Today Rupe embraces this same technique. Under painting in red, his vivid colors vibrate with unique power, Painting provides immediate response. Rupe works in oils because the paint doesn’t shift in tonality, there is truth in the color. When Rupe teaches he tells his art students, “The Jibber-Jabber in your mind is a lie, go with your first thought it’s the truth, the most important of all. Choosing your subject whatever it may be is about honestly experiencing what is in front of you. It is what you need to create.” “Art is not a noun. Art is a verb, you must take action.” Rupe lived and painted all over the world, from Katmandu to Easter Island, the Dominican, Mexico, Wisconsin, Chicago, Provincetown to L.A. Rupe lived the fast lane pace of booze and drugs for a time. Rupe thought he’d either live to 110 or die young. At some point in your life, life slips and you ask, do you want to live or die? Rupe chose to live. Rupe put on the brakes and turned it around. Rupe could have become a well-known artist in the L.A. art scene, but the demeaning jobs he’d have to take to get there angered him and that was troubling. Then a moment of synchronicity occurred. Rupe helped two friends move to Hudson from L.A. The instant Rupe drove into town he burst into tears, the architecture, the beauty, the grit, the past splendor and years of neglect. It was real, so Rupe moved here. Where she lives, she has become there. Rupe asks why he loves painting on the street. Rupe is attracted to the color and patterns and the light. Rupe chose to make art brightly with bold strokes, it’s laughing out loud with nothing to hide, he just let it out. Rupe wants people to stop and look at his work, He loves to talk to them, it’s life, it’s genuine. Rupe knows who he is when he paints.

The first decades of the 20th century were a period of artistic upheaval, with modern art movements including Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism and Dadaism questioning centuries of traditional views of what art should be. Using abstraction, experimental forms and interdisciplinary techniques, painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers and performance artists all pushed the boundaries of creative expression.

Major exhibitions, like the 1913 Armory Show in New York City — also known as the “International Exhibition of Modern Art,” in which works like the radically angular Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp caused a sensation — challenged the perspective of viewers and critics and heralded the arrival of modern art in the United States. But the movement’s revolutionary spirit took shape in the 19th century.

The Industrial Revolution, which ushered in new technology and cultural conditions across the world, transformed art from something mostly commissioned by the wealthy or the church to work that responded to personal experiences. The Impressionist style emerged in 1860s France with artists like Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Edgar Degas quickly painting works that captured moments of light and urban life. Around the same time in England, the Pre-Raphaelites, like Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, borrowed from late medieval and early Renaissance art to imbue their art with symbolism and modern ideas of beauty.

Emerging from this disruption of the artistic status quo, modern art went further in rejecting conventions and embracing innovation. The bold legacy of leading modern artists Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian and many others continues to inform visual culture today.

Find a collection of modern paintings, sculptures, prints and other fine art on 1stDibs.

It could be argued that cave walls were the canvases for the world’s first landscape paintings, which depict and elevate natural scenery through art, but there is a richer history to consider.

The Netherlands was home to landscapes as a major theme in painting as early as the 1500s, and ink-on-silk paintings in China featured mountains and large bodies of water as far back as the third century. Greeks created vast wall paintings that depicted landscapes and grandiose garden scenes, while in the late 15th century and early 16th century, landscapes were increasingly the subject of watercolor works by the likes of Leonardo da Vinci and Fra Bartolomeo.

The popularity of religious paintings eventually declined altogether, and by the early 19th century, painters of classical landscapes took to painting out-of-doors (plein-air painting). Paintings of natural scenery were increasingly realistic but romanticized too. Into the 20th century, landscapes remained a major theme for many artists, and while the term “landscape painting” may call to mind images of lush, grassy fields and open seascapes, the genre is characterized by more variety, colors and diverse styles than you may think. Painters working in the photorealist style of landscape painting, for example, seek to create works so lifelike that you may confuse their paint for camera pixels. But if you’re shopping for art to outfit an important room, the work needs to be something with a bit of gravitas (and the right frame is important, too).

Adding a landscape painting to your home can introduce peace and serenity within the confines of your own space. (Some may think of it as an aspirational window of sorts rather than a canvas.) Abstract landscape paintings by the likes of Korean painter Seungyoon Choi or Georgia-based artist Katherine Sandoz, on the other hand, bring pops of color and movement into a room. These landscapes refuse to serve as a background. Elsewhere, Adam Straus’s technology-inspired paintings highlight how our extreme involvement with our devices has removed us from the glory of the world around us. Influenced by modern life and steeped in social commentary, Straus’s landscape paintings make us see our surroundings anew.

Whether you’re seeking works by the world’s most notable names or those authored by underground legends, find a vast collection of landscape paintings on 1stDibs.