Paul Surber
20th Century American Realist Portrait Paintings
Acrylic
People Also Browsed
1880s Victorian Portrait Paintings
Oil
18th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil
Late 18th Century Rococo Portrait Paintings
Canvas
1950s Realist Portrait Paintings
Oil
Antique 19th Century French Art Nouveau Animal Sculptures
Bronze
Mid-19th Century American Realist Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil
1930s Impressionist Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil
17th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil
Late 20th Century Modern Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
Antique 19th Century Italian American Classical Busts
Marble
Antique 19th Century American Folk Art Paintings
Canvas
Vintage 1980s North American Tribal Paintings
Acrylic
1960s Fauvist Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil
Mid-20th Century French Paintings
Canvas, Giltwood
1990s Surrealist Portrait Paintings
Oil, Canvas
Vintage 1980s American Modern Tribal Art
Wood, Paper
Finding the Right portrait-paintings for You
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.