Gian Paolo Dulbecco

Gian Paolo Dulbecco was born in La Spezia, Italy in 1941 and began painting by the end of the 1950s. He also devoted himself to the engraving techniques, especially to the drypoint. In 1966, he graduated from the Polytechnic University in Milan. His first exhibitions began in the last years of the 1960s when he moved to Rome. In 1971, Dulbecco returned to Milan, taking part in many important art exhibitions. In 1982–83, he created a set of paintings on the Via Crucis theme, now placed in the S. Gemma Church in Monza; at the same time, he presented some paintings in various sacred-art exhibitions. In 1984, he won a prize from the Cartier's Collection in Milan. In 1992, he was among the winners in a national competition organized by the Italian revue "Arte." In 1992–93, Dulbecco revisited the Tarots theme, that he had already developed in the previous years: a special set of these 22 paintings, devoted to the tobacco's subject and history, is included by the French art critic Pierre Restany in the show Art et Tabac, which is presented in various European countries. A period of various exhibitions in Europe and Japan followed. In July 2002, the Italian Ministry for Heritage and Cultural Affairs supported a significant anthological exhibition in Ravello, with his paintings from 1990–2002. Dulbecco developed his language modulated on arrangements of color and light in a search for formal value, often expressed on canvases of small dimensions. Combined with the pursuit of creative refinement, his painting is characterized by a marked state of disorientation as a metaphor for the universal interrogative. The result is a universe of magic realism, organized without purpose, in a suspended atmosphere and frozen in time. Several of his works are a part of the Italian and European public collections, including the Collection of Fantastic Art at the Gruyères Castle, Switzerland; the Paul VI Museum of Sacred Art, Concesio, Brescia, Italy; the Panorama Museum, Germany; the Collection of Art of the City of Ravello, Salerno, Italy; the Museo dei Tarocchi (Museum of Tarot) of Riola, Bologna, Italy; and the Art Collection of the Province of Palermo, Italy.

In the wake of World War I’s ravaging of Europe, artists delved into the unconscious mind to confront and grapple with this reality. Poet and critic André Breton, a leader of the Surrealist movement who authored the 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, called this approach “a violent reaction against the impoverishment and sterility of thought processes that resulted from centuries of rationalism.” Surrealist art emerged in the 1920s with dreamlike and uncanny imagery guided by a variety of techniques such as automatic drawing, which can be likened to a stream of consciousness, to channel psychological experiences.

Although Surrealism was a groundbreaking approach for European art, its practitioners were inspired by Indigenous art and ancient mysticism for reenvisioning how sculptures, paintings, prints, performance art and more could respond to the unsettled world around them.

Surrealist artists were also informed by the Dada movement, which originated in 1916 Zurich and embraced absurdity over the logic that had propelled modernity into violence. Some of the Surrealists had witnessed this firsthand, such as Max Ernst, who served in the trenches during World War I, and Salvador Dalí, whose otherworldly paintings and other work responded to the dawning civil war in Spain.

Other key artists associated with the revolutionary art and literary movement included Man Ray, Joan Miró, René Magritte, Yves Tanguy, Frida Kahlo and Meret Oppenheim, all of whom had a distinct perspective on reimagining reality and freeing the unconscious mind from the conventions and restrictions of rational thought. Pablo Picasso showed some of his works in “La Peinture Surréaliste” — the first collective exhibition of Surrealist painting — which opened at Paris’s Galerie Pierre in November of 1925. (Although Magritte is best known as one of the visual Surrealist movement’s most talented practitioners, his famous 1943 painting, The Fifth Season, can be interpreted as a formal break from Surrealism.)

The outbreak of World War II led many in the movement to flee Europe for the Americas, further spreading Surrealism abroad. Generations of modern and contemporary artists were subsequently influenced by the richly symbolic and unearthly imagery of Surrealism, from Joseph Cornell to Arshile Gorky.

Find a collection of original Surrealist paintings, sculptures, prints and multiples and more art on 1stDibs.

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.