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Carol Summers, one of America's foremost printmakers, was born in Kingston, New York, in 1925. After service in the Second World War in the Pacific, he attended Bard College, where he studied painting under Stefan Hirsch and printmaking with Louis Schanker. Soon after his graduation in 1951, Summers was awarded several prestigious fellowships, one from the Italian government to study in Italy in 1955, two from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation in 1955 and 1960, and another from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation in 1959. University posts and workshops took him all over the world, and his subject matter is mainly colorful, stylized landscapes of the places that were of special significance to him, such as in Italy, India and Nepal. In 1974, Summers was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Bard College. His work is in numerous prestigious museums internationally including the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Accademia Degli Intronati in Siena, Italy.

Used to refer to a time rather than an aesthetic, Contemporary art generally describes pieces created after 1970 or being made by living artists anywhere in the world. This immediacy means it encompasses art responding to the present moment through diverse subjects, media and themes. Contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, performance, digital art, video and more frequently includes work that is attempting to reshape current ideas about what art can be, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of candy to memorialize a lover he lost to AIDS-related complications to Jenny Holzer’s ongoing “Truisms,” a Conceptual series that sees provocative messages printed on billboards, T-shirts, benches and other public places that exist outside of formal exhibitions and the conventional “white cube” of galleries.

Contemporary art has been pushing the boundaries of creative expression for years. Its disruption of the traditional concepts of art are often aiming to engage viewers in complex questions about identity, society and culture. In the latter part of the 20th century, contemporary movements included Land art, in which artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer create large-scale, site-specific sculptures, installations and other works in soil and bodies of water; Sound art, with artists such as Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz centering art on sonic experiences; and New Media art, in which mass media and digital culture inform the work of artists such as Nam June Paik and Rafaël Rozendaal.

The first decades of the 21st century have seen the growth of Contemporary African art, the revival of figurative painting, the emergence of street art and the rise of NFTs, unique digital artworks that are powered by blockchain technology.

Major Contemporary artists practicing now include Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Kara Walker.

Find a collection of Contemporary prints, photography, paintings, sculptures and other art on 1stDibs.