W A Arnett
1980s Contemporary Mixed Media
Paper, Mixed Media
1970s Contemporary Still-life Paintings
Canvas, Oil
1980s Expressionist Nude Paintings
Paper, Mixed Media, Watercolor
Late 20th Century Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Mixed Media, Paper, Watercolor
Late 20th Century Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Paper, Watercolor
1980s Contemporary Mixed Media
Paper, Mixed Media
People Also Browsed
20th Century American Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Oil
1970s American Modern Abstract Sculptures
Stoneware, Glaze
1960s Surrealist Figurative Prints
Etching, Aquatint
Mid-20th Century American Brutalist Figurative Sculptures
Concrete, Bronze
17th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Cotton Canvas, Oil
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Figurative Sculptures
Ceramic, Pottery
1980s Pop Art Abstract Prints
Screen
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Figurative Sculptures
Metal
Mid-20th Century Chinese Figurative Sculptures
Bronze
Antique 19th Century French Moorish Busts
Bronze
Late 20th Century Abstract Geometric Abstract Sculptures
Iron
Mid-20th Century European Busts
Limestone, Bronze
Vintage 1960s Italian Modern Ceramics
Gold
Early 1900s American Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Oil
Artist Comments
A colorful abstract scene comes alive in artist George Peeble's conceptual piece. He displays the aesthetic of the first week of spring. The geometric figures a...
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Abstract Paintings
Oil
Mid-20th Century American Modern Nude Sculptures
Bronze
Recent Sales
20th Century American Paintings
Canvas
1980s Contemporary Mixed Media
Paper, Mixed Media
1980s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Paper, Watercolor, Acrylic
Artis Lane for sale on 1stDibs
For work that spans portraiture, oil painting and bronze sculpture, the Canadian artist Artis Lane draws from the spiritual and emotional aspects of human existence. Lane is a trailblazer: She was the first Black woman to be admitted to Cranbrook Academy of Art — a legendary institution within art, design and architecture — and her bronze bust of Sojourner Truth was the first statue of an African-American woman in the United States Capitol.
Lane was born in North Buxton, Ontario, in a town predominantly inhabited by the descendants of slaves who arrived in Canada by way of the Underground Railroad. As her artistic career developed, so did her interest in people of African descent as well as her ideas about the physical world and our bodies being vessels, capable of eventually taking on godly characteristics.
“Lane promotes the primacy of corporeal experience with sculptures that speak to Africa as the beginning of human life,” noted the University of Oklahoma’s Journal of Museum Studies in 2008. Her unique approach to depicting the journey between the physical and spiritual worlds has been to work outside the constraints of the traditional bronze finishing process, leaving the ceramic casing, wire and tubing used to cast it intact as part of the finished piece, whereby the wire is symbolic of bondage to the physical form.
Lane attended what was then called the Ontario College of Art (today, it’s the Ontario College of Art and Design University) on the Edith Chapman scholarship before studying painting at Cranbrook. She took an active role in the artistic communities in the various cities she lived in over the years. In New York and Los Angeles, she befriended actors Cary Grant and Diahann Carroll, and in Detroit, she painted commissioned portraits of auto industry executives to pay the bills. She would go on to paint portraits of many esteemed figures such as President John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jordan and Aretha Franklin. Today, a sculpture Lane created of Rosa Parks is on display at the National Portrait Gallery.
Lane received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the California African American Museum and an honorary degree from her alma mater, Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Find a collection of Artis Lane art on 1stDibs.