Peter Michael Adams
2010s Realist Figurative Paintings
Oil, Panel
1970s Abstract Abstract Prints
Lithograph
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Paintings
Mixed Media, Oil
1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Canvas, Oil
Early 2000s Abstract Abstract Paintings
Oil
People Also Browsed
20th Century Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Watercolor
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Paintings
Canvas, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Danish Scandinavian Modern Table Lamps
Metal
16th Century Old Masters Paintings
Oil
Antique Early 19th Century North American Spanish Colonial Sculptures an...
Wood, Paint
1980s Abstract Expressionist Figurative Paintings
Canvas, Oil
1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Canvas, Oil
Charles Ragland BunnellComposition in Red and Blue - Abstract Expressionist 1950s Oil Painting, 1951
Vintage 1970s Unknown Organic Modern Decorative Bowls
Earthenware
1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Oil, Board
Antique Early 18th Century Portuguese Baroque Religious Items
Silver
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Expressionist Landscape Paintings
Oil
Antique Early 19th Century Peruvian Rococo Paintings
Canvas, Paint
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Expressionist Landscape Paintings
Oil
1960s Cubist Figurative Paintings
Canvas, Oil, Gouache, Board
Vintage 1940s American Expressionist Paintings
Board
Mid-19th Century Realist Landscape Paintings
Oil
Recent Sales
1970s Realist Portrait Paintings
Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Paintings
Mixed Media, Oil
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Stoneware, Cedar
2010s Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Wood
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Stoneware, Birch
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Stoneware, Cedar
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Birch, Mixed Media
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Stoneware, Birch
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Stoneware, Glaze
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Wood
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Stoneware, Birch
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Stoneware
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Stoneware, Birch, Ceramic
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Birch
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Stoneware, Birch
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Stoneware, Birch
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Stoneware, Birch
2010s Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Wood
2010s Abstract Abstract Sculptures
Ceramic, Stoneware, Birch
1980s Contemporary Color Photography
Color, Polaroid
A Close Look at Abstract Art
Beginning in the early 20th century, abstract art became a leading style of modernism. Rather than portray the world in a way that represented reality, as had been the dominating style of Western art in the previous centuries, abstract paintings, prints and sculptures are marked by a shift to geometric forms, gestural shapes and experimentation with color to express ideas, subject matter and scenes.
Although abstract art flourished in the early 1900s, propelled by movements like Fauvism and Cubism, it was rooted in the 19th century. In the 1840s, J.M.W. Turner emphasized light and motion for atmospheric paintings in which concrete details were blurred, and Paul Cézanne challenged traditional expectations of perspective in the 1890s.
Some of the earliest abstract artists — Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint — expanded on these breakthroughs while using vivid colors and forms to channel spiritual concepts. Painter Piet Mondrian, a Dutch pioneer of the art movement, explored geometric abstraction partly owing to his belief in Theosophy, which is grounded in a search for higher spiritual truths and embraces philosophers of the Renaissance period and medieval mystics. Black Square, a daringly simple 1913 work by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, was a watershed statement on creating art that was free “from the dead weight of the real world,” as he later wrote.
Surrealism in the 1920s, led by artists such as Salvador Dalí, Meret Oppenheim and others, saw painters creating abstract pieces in order to connect to the subconscious. When Abstract Expressionism emerged in New York during the mid-20th century, it similarly centered on the process of creation, in which Helen Frankenthaler’s expressive “soak-stain” technique, Jackson Pollock’s drips of paint, and Mark Rothko’s planes of color were a radical new type of abstraction.
Conceptual art, Pop art, Hard-Edge painting and many other movements offered fresh approaches to abstraction that continued into the 21st century, with major contemporary artists now exploring it, including Anish Kapoor, Mark Bradford, El Anatsui and Julie Mehretu.
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In his current show at New York's Lehmann Maupin gallery, the Puerto Rican–born talent reveals new paintings with a semiautobiographical aspect.