José Luis Cuevas On Sale

José Luis Cuevas was a Mexican painter, draftsman, writer, engraver, sculptor and illustrator. Although the biography on his personal site indicates the date of 1934, his older brother, the doctor and psychoanalyst Alberto Cuevas Novelo, has assured that he was actually born in the year 1931. He was known as the "terrible boy" of painting in Mexico, and also had the nickname of Gato Macho. From his first exhibition in Washington in 1954, when he was only 20 years old and from the Washington Post and Time Magazine, he learned to exploit his public image as a macho, seducer of women, and an artist without hair on the tongue. An extraordinary sense of vanity and narcissism led him to photograph himself day after day since 1955. He challenged the Mexican mural movement that dominated at that time and was a prominent member of the Rupture Generation. He was a self-taught artist, with many very marked styles and influences on the dark side of his life, and he frequently distorted figures and generated debates. He was a very controversial character, not only for artistic reasons, but also for his controversies with other writers and artists. In 1992, the José Luis Cuevas Museum was inaugurated, which houses many of his works and his personal art collection in the Historic Center of Mexico City.

Bring energy and an array of welcome colors and textures into your space by decorating with figurative fine-art prints and works on paper.

Figurative art stands in contrast to abstract art, which is more expressive than representational. The oldest-known work of figurative art is a figurative painting — specifically, a rock painting of an animal made over 40,000 years ago in Borneo. This remnant of a remote past has long faded, but its depiction of a cattle-like creature in elegant ocher markings endures.

Since then, figurative art has evolved significantly as it continues to represent the world, including a breadth of works on paper, including printmaking. This includes woodcuts, which are a type of relief print with perennial popularity among collectors. The artist carves into a block and applies ink to the raised surface, which is then pressed onto paper. There are also planographic prints, which use metal plates, stones or other flat surfaces as their base. The artist will often draw on the surface with grease crayon and then apply ink to those markings. Lithographs are a common version of planographic prints.

Figurative art printmaking was especially popular during the height of the Pop art movement, and this kind of work can be seen in artist Andy Warhol’s extensive use of photographic silkscreen printing. Everyday objects, logos and scenes were given a unique twist, whether in the style of a comic strip or in the use of neon colors.

Explore an impressive collection of figurative art prints for sale on 1stDibs and read about how to arrange your wall art.