Moval Loose 2a Diamond

At a young age, Léopold Survage was directed to enter the piano factory operated by his Finnish father. He learned to play piano and then completed a commercial diploma in 1897. After a severe illness at the age of 22, Survage rethought his career and entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Introduced to the modern movement through the collections of Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, he cast his lot with the Russian avant-garde and, by 1906, was loosely affiliated with the circle of the magazine Zolotoye runo. He met Alexander Archipenko, exhibiting with him in the company of David Burlyuk, Vladimir Burlyuk, Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova.

With Hélène Moniuschko, later his wife, he traveled to Western Europe, visiting Paris in July 1908. The couple eventually settled in Paris where Survage worked as a piano tuner and briefly attended the short-lived school run by Henri Matisse. He exhibited with the Jack of Diamonds group in Moscow in 1910 and first showed his work in France at the urging of Archipenko in the Salon d'Automne of 1911. In 1913, Survage produced abstract compositions using color and movement to evoke a type of musical sensation. Entitled Rythmes colorés, he planned to animate these illustrations using film to form "symphonies en couleur". He saw these abstract images as flowing together, but he exhibited the ink wash drawings separately at the Salon d'Automne in 1913 and Salon des Indépendants in 1914. Articles on these works were published by Guillaume Apollinaire (Paris-J., July 1914) and Survage himself (Soirées Paris, July–August 1914).

In June 1914, to develop his idea, Survage unsuccessfully applied for a patent to the Gaumont Film Company. Had he been able to raise the funds, he would have preceded Viking Eggeling and Hans Richter as the first to develop abstract films. Beginning in 1917, Survage shared a studio and a penchant for alcoholic excesses with Amedeo Modigliani in Paris. Survage later moved to Nice and, over the next eight years, produced highly structured oils and works on paper linked together by a series of leitmotifs, repeating groups of symbolic elements—man, sea, building, flower, window, curtain, bird as if they were protagonists in a series of moving images. The influence may have been Marc Chagall's, an artist well known for his insertions of floating couples, cows, roosters, and sundry Jewish iconography. By 1922, Survage had begun to move away from Cubism in favor of the neo-classical form. He was perhaps influenced by commissions for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, beginning with sets and costumes for Igor Stravinsky's opera buffa Mavra at the Paris Opéra in 1922. Although mainly a painter, he also produced stage, tapestry, and textile designs during this period (notably for the house of Chanel in 1933). Toward the end of the 1930s, as a result of his contact with André Masson, Survage became increasingly charmed by symbols and mysticism. The curvilinear forms that had previously dominated his compositions came, once again, under the control of the geometric structure. Survage was inducted into France's Légion d'Honneur in 1963. He died on 31 October 1968 in Paris.

Explore a vast range of abstract prints on 1stDibs to find a piece to enhance your existing collection or transform a space.

Unlike figurative paintings and other figurative art, which focuses on realism and representational perspectives, abstract art concentrates on visual interpretation. An artist may use a single color or simple geometric forms to create a world of depth. Printmaking has a rich history of abstraction. Through materials like stone, metal, wood and wax, an image can be transferred from one surface to another.

During the 19th century, iconic artists, including Edvard Munch, Paul Cézanne, Georgiana Houghton and others, began exploring works based on shapes and colors. This was a departure from the academic conventions of European painting and would influence the rise of 20th-century abstraction and its pioneers, like Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian.

Some leaders of European abstraction, including Franz Kline, were influenced by the gestural shapes of East Asian calligraphy. Calligraphy interprets poetry, songs, symbols or other means of storytelling into art, from works on paper in Japan to elements of Islamic architecture.

Bold, daring and expressive, abstract art is constantly evolving and dazzling viewers. And entire genres have blossomed from it, such as Color Field painting and Minimalism.

The collection of abstract art prints on 1stDibs includes etchings, lithographs, screen-prints and other works, and you can find prints by artists such as Joan Miró, Alexander Calder and more.