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.
Price Upon Request
"Jesse Owens - Long Jump Medalist", Mixed Media on Paper
By Artis Lane
Located in Detroit, MI
This mixed media on paper painting of Jesse Owens is from the seminal artist Artis Lane and is one of the many exquisite pieces done of historical figures ...
Paper, Mixed Media
Price Upon Request
"Ancient Man", Mixed Media on Paper
By Artis Lane
Located in Detroit, MI
This mixed media on paper from the seminal artist Artis Lane is one of the many model pictures from her long and illustrious career. The subject is an older man, whom is called "Anci...
Paper, Mixed Media
Price Upon Request
"Self Portrait" Frontal Female, Mixed Media on Paper, Subtle Colors
By Artis Lane
Located in Detroit, MI
"Self-Portrait" is a stunning mixed media piece showing the vibrancy of the figure through the use of bold lines and placement of the blue and orange colors. The figure appears to be...
Paper, Mixed Media
Price Upon Request
"Surreal Study" Male and Female Figures on a Branch, Colors, Mixed Media
By Artis Lane
Located in Detroit, MI
"Surreal Study: Male and Female Figures on a Branch" is a complex piece with figures both facing toward and away from the viewer sitting on a branch in a mammoth tree or a fallen tre...
Paper, Mixed Media
Batman
By Tony Dagradi
Located in New Orleans, LA
materials: Greatest Batman Stories 1938-83 (excerpts) --- TONY DAGRADI is an internationally recognized jazz performer, artist, composer, author and educator. For over three deca...
Wood, Paper, Mixed Media
124
By Jenny Day
Located in New Orleans, LA
[Tucson, AZ / Santa Fe, NM ::: b. 1981] JENNY DAY (b.1981) is a painter who divides her time between Tucson, Arizona and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She earned an MFA in Painting and Draw...
Paper, Mixed Media
155
By Jenny Day
Located in New Orleans, LA
[Tucson, AZ / Santa Fe, NM ::: b. 1981] JENNY DAY (b.1981) is a painter who divides her time between Tucson, Arizona and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She earned an MFA in Painting and Draw...
Paper, Mixed Media
151
By Jenny Day
Located in New Orleans, LA
[Tucson, AZ / Santa Fe, NM ::: b. 1981] JENNY DAY (b.1981) is a painter who divides her time between Tucson, Arizona and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She earned an MFA in Painting and Draw...
Paper, Mixed Media
$795
H 14 in W 14 in
Deep Green - Modern Original Framed Moody Abstract Landscape Mixed Media Art
By Lee Herring
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Lee Herring focuses his contemporary paintings on vibrant, textured, and abstract landscapes that convey fleeting moments. Herring's energetic artworks are inspired by everyday momen...
Paper, Mixed Media
177
By Jenny Day
Located in New Orleans, LA
[Tucson, AZ / Santa Fe, NM ::: b. 1981] JENNY DAY (b.1981) is a painter who divides her time between Tucson, Arizona and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She earned an MFA in Painting and Draw...
Paper, Mixed Media
$795
H 14 in W 14 in
Stormy Clouds - Modern Original Framed Moody Abstract Landscape Mixed Media Art
By Lee Herring
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Lee Herring focuses his contemporary paintings on vibrant, textured, and abstract landscapes that convey fleeting moments. Herring's energetic artworks are inspired by everyday momen...
Paper, Mixed Media
$1,975
H 24 in W 48 in
Foundations of Insight - Original Moody Mixed Media Surrealist Figurative Art
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Robert Lebsack creates artworks using mixed media with ink, acrylic, and charcoal on archival copies of newspapers, textbooks, and sheet music. As a visionary artist, Lebsack weaves ...
Charcoal, Ink, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Wood Panel, Archival Paper
154
By Jenny Day
Located in New Orleans, LA
[Tucson, AZ / Santa Fe, NM ::: b. 1981] JENNY DAY (b.1981) is a painter who divides her time between Tucson, Arizona and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She earned an MFA in Painting and Draw...
Paper, Mixed Media
Guardian Ver. II (framed original drawing on paper)
By Peter Max
Located in Aventura, FL
Original crayon and pencil drawing on paper. Hand signed and dated on front by Peter Max. Remarqued and hand signed on frame verso by Peter Max. Paper size: 6 x 7.8 inches. Frame...
Paper, Mixed Media, Crayon, Pencil
Untitled
By Charlotte Culot
Located in Fairfield, CT
mixed media on paper not mounted or framed
Paper, Mixed Media
Eyes Wide Open 1
By Charlotte Culot
Located in Fairfield, CT
Charlotte Culot was born in Belgium in 1964 into a family of artists. From childhood, drawing was part of her universe. At the same time as university studies in Archeology and Histo...
Paper, Mixed Media
Sold
H 30.5 in W 25.5 in
"Seated Man on Motorcycle" Mixed Media, Abstract, Duo-Toned, Nude, Primitive
By Artis Lane
Located in Detroit, MI
"Seated Man on Motorcycle" is an abstract study of a figure at ease on a motorcycle. By limiting the work to white paint on black paper, the images blend into one combined force of s...
Paper, Mixed Media