Richard Creifelds On Sale

Richard Creifelds was a prominent and highly-sought-after genre scene and portrait painter active in New York during the latter half of the 19th century. Creifelds began his artistic training at the National Academy of Design in 1871, where his classmates included James Carroll Beckwith, Frederic Edwin Church and Albert Pinkham Ryder. The next year, Creifelds traveled to Europe, where he attended the Akademie der Bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts) in Munich and studied under famed German painters Franz Xaver Barth and Alexander von Wagner. While abroad, Creifelds perfected his skill for genre and portrait painting, drawing inspiration for his genre scenes from the important group of Dutch genre painters known as the ‘Dutch Little Masters,’ which included artists such as Gerard Ter Borch, Jan Steen and Pieter de Hooch. Returning to New York after six years in Europe, Creifelds received several public art commissions including the altarpiece for St. Andrews Church at East 127th street, The Calling of St. Andrew (1880), which became one of his most celebrated works. Other public commissions include a portrait of the prominent New Yorker William B. Dana, and a portrait of New York City Mayor Hugh Grant, both of which hang in the New York City Chamber of Commerce. The artist also worked on several genre paintings, capitalizing on their popularity at the turn of the century. Working prolifically, Creifelds participated in the most prestigious art exhibitions in the United States such as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and National Academy of Design. Creifelds’s painting, A Quiet Afternoon in the Park, attests to the artist’s skill for genre painting. The painting features a fashionable modern woman at the turn of the century seated on a bench presumably located in New York City’s Central Park. Creifelds picture captures life a century ago and gives today’s viewers a sense of beauty and tranquility.

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.