Richard Combs

Richard Combes creates remarkably lifelike oil paintings that explore the relationship between vacant spaces and the solitary people who fleetingly occupy them.

Decaying inner-city building interiors, rain-soaked streets and solemn storefronts are the subjects of choice for the British artist’s award-winning realist work. Combes’s carefully rendered depictions are a love letter to disused spaces that time and the elements have left bedraggled and dilapidated. He has cited Impressionist and Surrealist art as having been influential for him, and his background as an architect provides him with a keen insight into the themes he explores in his work.

Combes was born in Manchester. He graduated from the architecture program at the University of Liverpool and immediately secured work in his field of study. Combes eventually felt dissatisfied with his career choice, as he began to notice that he was more interested in sketching the neglected and largely vacant spaces than finishing his architectural renderings that would form their replacement. Combes made a change — he moved to New York City and earned his MFA at the New York Academy of Art.

Combes was elected as a full member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 2004. His work has earned international acclaim and a lengthy list of prizes and awards. Combes’s paintings have been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, and his work is in the private collections of many celebrities and prominent figures.

On 1stDibs, find original Richard Combes landscape paintings, still-life paintings and other art.

Painting is an art form that has spanned innumerable cultures, with artists using the medium to tell stories, explore and communicate ideas and express themselves. To bring abstract, landscape and still-life paintings into your home is to celebrate and share in the long tradition of this discipline.

When we look at paintings, particularly those that originated in the past, we learn about history, other cultures and countries of the world. Like every other work of art, paintings — whether they are contemporary creations or works that were made during the 19th century — can often help us clearly see and understand the world around us in a meaningful and interesting way.

Cave walls were the canvases for what were arguably the world’s first landscape paintings, which depict natural scenery through art. Portrait paintings and drawings, which, along with sculpture, were how someone’s appearance was recorded prior to the advent of photography, are at least as old as Ancient Egypt. In the Netherlands, landscapes were a major theme for painters as early as the 1500s. Later, artists in Greece, Rome and elsewhere created vast wall paintings to decorate stately homes, churches and tombs. Today, creating a wall of art is a wonderful way to enhance your space, showcase beautiful pieces and tie an interior design together.

No matter your preference, whether you favor Post-Impressionist paintings, animal paintings, Surrealism, Pop art or another movement or specific period, arranging art on a blank wall allows you to evoke emotions in a room while also showing off your tastes and interests. A symmetrical wall arrangement may comprise a grid of four to six pieces or, for an odd number of works, a horizontal row. Asymmetrical arrangements, which may be small clusters of art or large, salon-style gallery walls, have a more collected and eclectic feel. Download the 1stDibs app, which includes a handy “View on Wall” feature that allows you to see how a particular artwork will look on a particular wall, and read about how to arrange wall art. And if you’re searching for the perfect palette for your interior design project, what better place to turn than to the art world’s masters of color?

On 1stDibs, you’ll find an expansive collection of paintings and other fine art for your home or office. Browse abstract paintings, portrait paintings, paintings by popular artists and more today.