Doug La Fortune

Gilbert Braddy Lewis was born on September 25, 1945, in Hampton, Virginia. Son of David Blake Lewis (born in Atlanta, Georgia) and Gladys Louise Braddy [Lewis] (of Sanford, Florida); brother of David Blake Lewis (Jr.) and Linda Lewis (Hunter). The family resides at 3 South Linden Street, Hampton, Virginia. “I studied from the age of seven, in Virginia, with two well-known Tidewater artists, Jean Craig and the late Allan Jones. The teaching methods of carefully observed studies from nature in charcoal or tempra paint, derived, of course, from the original French academic model, conveyed its impact on my early development; however, my eye and consciousness were mostly activated by the reproductions on the studio wall of works by Botticelli, Da Vinci, and Michelangelo,” he said. From 1963–68, he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) with Franklin Watkins, Hobson Pittman, Morris Blackburn and Walter Stuempfig. While a student at PAFA, he shared an apartment with PAFA students, Jody Pinto and Barbara Sosson. In 1967, he received PAFA’s: Bergman Prize in Painting; M. Herbert Syme Prize; and Samuel Cresson Memorial Travelling Scholarship. The latter award enables Lewis to travel to Europe during the summer of 1967 where he visited museums. “In 1967, after having seen the Italian master’s work while on a scholarship from the Pennsylvania Academy, I was to realize my great influences and to discover the earlier Sienese masters whose clarity and energy still move me,” he said. On May 31, 1974, he was awarded the bachelor of fine arts degree from the Philadelphia College of Art and in 1978, received a Master’s degree in Creative Arts in Therapy from Hahnemann University, Philadelphia. From the late 1970s to the late 1980s/early 90s, worked as an art therapist at the Manchester House Nursing Center/Home in Media, Pennsylvania. In 1981, he held his first solo exhibition at the Peale House Galleries (East Gallery) of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. “Since art school, I’ve turned from oil to media of gouache and pencil, separately and sometimes together. I’m trying to discover for myself the power of observation without sacrificing the passion of the art materials,” he said.

Realist art attempts to portray its subject matter without artifice. Similar to naturalism, authentic realist paintings and prints see an integration of true-to-life colors, meticulous detail and linear perspectives for accurate portrayals of the world. 

Work that involves illusionistic techniques of realism dates back to the classical world, such as the deceptive trompe l’oeil used since ancient Greece. Art like this became especially popular in the 17th century when Dutch artists like Evert Collier painted objects that appeared real enough to touch. Realism as an artistic movement, however, usually refers to 19th-century French realist artists such as Honoré Daumier exploring social and political issues in biting lithographic prints, while the likes of Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet painting people — particularly the working class — with all their imperfections, navigating everyday urban life. This was a response to the dominant academic art tradition that favored grand paintings of myth and history. 

By the turn of the 20th century, European artists, such as the Pre-Raphaelites, were experimenting with nearly photographic realism in their work, as seen in the attention to every botanical attribute of the flowers surrounding the drowned Ophelia painted by English artist John Everett Millais.

Although abstraction was the guiding style of 20th-century art, the realism trend in American modern art endured in Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth and other artists’ depictions of the complexities of the human experience. In the late 1960s, Photorealism emerged with artists like Chuck Close and Richard Estes giving their paintings the precision of a frame of film.

Contemporary artists such as Jordan Casteel, LaToya Ruby Frazier and Aliza Nisenbaum are now using the unvarnished realist approach for honest representations of people and their worlds. Alongside traditional mediums, technology such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and immersive installations are helping artists create new sensations of realism in art.

​​Find authentic realist paintings, sculptures, prints and more art on 1stDibs.

An elegant and sophisticated decorative touch in any living space, portrait paintings have remained popular throughout the years and are widely loved pieces of art for display in many homes today.

Portrait paintings are at least as old as ancient Egypt, where realistic, lifelike depictions of the recently deceased — commonly known as “mummy portraits” — were painted on wooden panels and affixed to mummies as part of the burial tradition.

For centuries, painters have used portraiture as a means of expressing a subject’s nobility, societal status and authority. Portraits were given as gifts in Renaissance Europe, and a portrait artist might have been commissioned to help mark a significant occasion such as a wedding or a promotion to high office. Prior to the advent of photography, which eventually replaced painted portraits as a quicker and more efficient way of capturing a person’s essence, the subject of a portrait had to sit for hours until the painter had finished. And during the 18th century in particular, if an artist commissioned for a portrait struggled with how to adequately memorialize and capture a subject’s likeness, sometimes a portrait painting wasn’t completed for up to a year.

Whether it’s part of the gallery-style approach to your living-room or dining-room walls or merely inspiration as you devise an eye-grabbing color scheme in your home, a portrait painting is a timeless decorative object for any interior. A landscape painting or sculpture might give you the kind of insight into a specific region of the world or a different culture that you can ascertain only through art. Similarly, when you take the time to learn about the subject of a portrait painting that you bring into your home — the sitter’s history, the relationship between the sitter and the artist should one exist, the story of how the portrait came to be — that work can become intensely personal in addition to its place as an object for an art-hungry corner of your apartment or house.

On 1stDibs, visit a vast collection of famous portrait paintings or works by emerging artists. Search by medium to find the right portrait paintings for your home in oil paint, synthetic resin paint and more. Find portrait paintings in a variety of styles, too, including contemporary, Impressionist and Pop art, or search by artist to find unique works created by painters such as Mark Beard, Steve Kaufman and Montse Valdés.