John Dobbs had many solo shows at galleries, universities and museums. His work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio, and Salon Populiste in Paris. Dobbs’ paintings are part of the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey; the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York; the Canton Museum of Art, Canton, Ohio and the Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, Massachusetts. From 1972–96, Dobbs was a professor of art at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. He was a member of the National Academy of Design, to which he was elected in 1976.
Play at The Plate, Sporting Scene
By John Dobbs
Located in Surfside, FL
John Barnes Dobbs, a determinedly figurative painter who launched his career in the 1950s against the prevailing winds of Abstract Expressionism, lived to see a time when Realism wou...
Canvas, Oil
Shot on Goal, Sporting Scene
By John Dobbs
Located in Surfside, FL
John Barnes Dobbs, a determinedly figurative painter who launched his career in the 1950s against the prevailing winds of Abstract Expressionism, lived to see a time when Realism wou...
Canvas, Oil
$6,000
H 48 in W 54 in
Still Moving Forward - Original Oil on Canvas Abstract Landscape Painting
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Mark Acetelli’s oil and mixed media paintings awaken the viewer’s sense of exploration and adventure; they demand a new discovery. His artworks exhibit a chemistry of complexity and ...
Canvas, Oil
$16,759
H 25.5 in W 31.5 in D 2.5 in
19th Century genre oil painting of two women in a country house interior
Located in Nr Broadway, Worcestershire
Charles Haigh Wood British, (1854-1927) The Letter Oil on canvas, signed Image size: 17.25 inches x 23.25 inches Size including frame: 25.5 inches ...
Canvas, Oil
$2,325
H 30 in W 40 in
Whispers in Blue - Abstract Figurative Landscape Textured Impasto Oil Painting
By Ekaterina Ermilkina
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Ekaterina Ermilkina’s original, abstract fine art paintings are created using a skillful combination of applying and removing oil paint with a palette knife on canvas. Her inspiratio...
Canvas, Oil
$8,524
H 39.38 in W 59.06 in D 1.19 in
Beginning 6 - Contemporary Figurative Oil Painting, Beach View, Seaside
By Julita Malinowska
Located in Hallein, AT
Signed to the verso Artodyssey "Julita Malinowska's paintings belong to those, which once seen - are never forgotten. The open spaces, sometimes cool and bright, at other times heav...
Canvas, Oil
ShaoHua Nong Surrealist Original Oil Painting "Separate"
By Shaohua Nong
Located in New York, NY
Title: Separate Medium: Oil on canvas Size: 11.5 x 8 inches Frame: Framing options available! Condition: The painting appears to be in excellent condition. Note: This painting is unstretched Year: 2015 Artist: ShaoHua Nong...
Canvas, Oil
$8,524
H 39.38 in W 59.06 in D 1.19 in
Dialogue VIII - Contemporary Figurative Oil Painting, Beach View, People
By Julita Malinowska
Located in Hallein, AT
Artodyssey "Julita Malinowska's paintings belong to those, which once seen - are never forgotten. The open spaces, sometimes cool and bright, at other times heavily saturated with co...
Canvas, Oil
$12,500
H 24 in W 36 in
Connected Souls - Couple Embracing, Floral Background, Original Oil Painting
By Bruno Surdo
Located in Chicago, IL
This painting reveals Bruno Surdo’s fluency in merging Renaissance figure painting with Symbolist and Pre-Raphaelite sensibilities. A young woman lies nestled in a field of daisies, wrapped in soft drapery and cradling a red book to her chest, while a monarch butterfly hovers near her hand. The composition recalls the reclining female figures of Titian and Giorgione, yet the setting shifts from mythological landscape to an immersive, almost Edenic field of flowers. Surdo’s atelier training is evident in the sculptural modeling of the body and the careful handling of light across skin and fabric. The figure possesses the volumetric presence of High Renaissance painting, yet she is embedded in a richly detailed natural environment that feels intimate rather than grand. Art historically, the work resonates strongly with the Pre-Raphaelites—particularly artists like John Everett Millais and John William Waterhouse—whose depictions of women in lush floral settings combined realism with poetic symbolism. The daisies traditionally symbolize innocence and purity, while the butterfly evokes transformation, the soul, and ephemerality—motifs frequently explored in Symbolist painting. The red book introduces narrative ambiguity: knowledge, memory, or interior life held protectively against the body. Unlike Surdo’s more theatrical mythological or urban allegories, this composition feels contemplative and inward. Yet it still aligns with his broader practice of grounding contemporary psychological states in the language of art history. The painting becomes a meditation on introspection, metamorphosis, and the quiet tension between innocence and awakening, rendered with the authority of classical draftsmanship and layered with 19th-century poetic symbolism. Bruno Surdo Connected Souls oil on canvas 24h x 36w in 60.96h x 91.44w cm BRS124 Bruno A. Surdo b. Chicago, 1963 EXHIBITIONS 2023 New Work, Gallery VICTOR, Chicago, IL 2021 Ethos + Truth, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2020 Realities, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2018 Liberation, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Blood Sport, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Art on Paper 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Pier 36, New York, NY SOFA Chicago 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL 2017 POP!ARAZZI, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Coming Attractions, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2015 SOFA Chicago 2015, Ann Nathan Gallery, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Allegories, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2014 Bruno Surdo: Respond, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Modern Metaphors, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL 2013 Bruno Surdo: Revelations, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Vice + Virtue, Northern Illinois University Museum of Art 2012 Contemporary Realism Biennial, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN 2011 Bruno Surdo, University of St. Francis School of Creative Arts, Fort Wayne, IN Uncensored, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2010 Art Chicago 2010, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2009 Art Chicago 2009, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2007 Bruno Surdo, Art Institute of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN 2006 Context/Content: Making Meaning with the Figure, University of Arkansas, Conway, AR Creative Imaginings, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL Bruno Surdo: Cycles, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2005 Art Chicago 2005, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2004 Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2004, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Group Show, Arcadia Gallery, New York, NY Drawings VII, Koplin Del Rio Gallery, West Hollywood, CA Armory Show, New York Armory, New York, NY 2003 Paintings & Drawings, College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL The Art Show, New York, NY Bruno Surdo: New Work, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2003, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2003-10 International Show of Contemporary Artists, Chicago Art Open, Chicago, IL 2002 Bruno Surdo: Perception of Appearance, Frye Museum, Seattle, WA Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Transcendence, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2002, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR 1998 Evanston and Vicinity Artists, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL 1996 Bruno Surdo: A Personal View, University of Wisconsin, Kenosha, WI 1995 Bruno Surdo: Recent Works, College of Lake County, IL AIDS in Our Society, Loyola University, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Life, Struggle, and Hope, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR Bruno Surdo: Dualities of Life, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1999 Group Show, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1998 Group Exhibition, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Chicago, IL 1995 Spiritual Inquiries, Struve Gallery, Chicago, IL 1994 Recent Works, The 14th Annual Juried Exhibition for Lake County Artists, Grayslake, IL Go Figure, Figurative Works on Paper, Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, Chicago, IL SELECTED COLLECTIONS The Re-Birth of Venus, Temporary Loan, Fort Wayne Museum of Art Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR College of Lake County, Greyslake, IL Flashpoint Academy, Chicago IL John Robert Wiltgen Design Shoemaker Ruud Collection Julie & Thomas Danilek Michael Vozzella and Mike Silver Benjamin Fernandez Tom Braake Betsy Colburn Michael Diemand & Lor LaRose Michael Staab & Kathy Brock Bruce Leep Frank Tzurect Mary Foley Rosalyn Carlson Mimmy Turney Janet Long Halstead Billy Hunt Carol Galli Myles Kerrigan Honorable & Mrs. Edwin Berman Theodore Gage Northrop Art Museum Past Present & Future Company Dr. James & Peggy Kemmler Salvatore Monastero Nix & Virginia Lauridsen Joel Miller David & Marlene Zerkel Ann & Andy Abel Claudia Rush Marc Miller Leonard Goldberg Lawrence Pucci Howard Tullman Collection Susan & Manny Kramer James Rinnert Richar Interiors Michael & Nancy Colt Khalid Altijir Dr. Joe Grodman Beryl & Jack Gore Larry Wolf & Eric Naegle Chuck Wolandi Jack Schwab & David Sandelin Thomas Kaczmarek Marti Dinerstein Craig & Michael Golden Mike & Jill Rose SELECTED PUBLICATIONS Bruno Surdo: The Method Artist Responds, by Lucia Mauro, June 26, 2014, anitathemovie blog An Exhibition of Exhibitionism: Bruno Surdo’s ‘Respond’, by Carrie McGath, July 1, 2014, The Chicagoist Website, Arts and Entertainment “Inspired Environs: A renowned designer decks out his Loop abode in art and texture” Modern Luxury, Men’s Book, Spring 2014 “Master Class” What’z Up Magazine, Fort Wayne, 2011 ”9/11 Painting will be on Display” Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, 2011 “Illuminated Images” Fort Wayne Reader, 2011 “Two Faces of Beauty” American Art Collector Magazine, Issue #3 and #59, 2006/2010 “Art and Calamity” Art Papers, 2009 “Versions of the Present, Techniques of the Past” American Artist Magazine, 2004 “Living Artists” Crow Book Publishing, Chicago, IL 2004 “The New Master” by Craig Keller, Chicago Social Magazine, 2004. “Tragedy, Memory, and Honor,” by William Hageman, Chicago Tribune, March 28, 2002 “Mural Depicts Tragedy of 9/11” Art Section, Chicago Sun Times, 2002 Review by Dennis Raverty, Art Papers Magazine, July 2001 WTTW Channel 11...
Canvas, Oil
ShaoHua Nong Surrealist Original Oil On Canvas "Together"
By Shaohua Nong
Located in New York, NY
Title: Together Medium: Oil on canvas Size: 12 x 12 inches Frame: Framing options available! Condition: The painting appears to be in excellent condition. Note: This painting is unstretched Year: 2013 Artist: ShaoHua Nong...
Canvas, Oil
$12,500
H 48 in W 36 in
Whispers of a Dreamer - Woman Asleep in Field of Daisies, Original Oil Painting
By Bruno Surdo
Located in Chicago, IL
This painting reveals Bruno Surdo’s fluency in merging Renaissance figure painting with Symbolist and Pre-Raphaelite sensibilities. A young woman lies nestled in a field of daisies, wrapped in soft drapery and cradling a red book to her chest, while a monarch butterfly hovers near her hand. The composition recalls the reclining female figures of Titian and Giorgione, yet the setting shifts from mythological landscape to an immersive, almost Edenic field of flowers. Surdo’s atelier training is evident in the sculptural modeling of the body and the careful handling of light across skin and fabric. The figure possesses the volumetric presence of High Renaissance painting, yet she is embedded in a richly detailed natural environment that feels intimate rather than grand. Art historically, the work resonates strongly with the Pre-Raphaelites—particularly artists like John Everett Millais and John William Waterhouse—whose depictions of women in lush floral settings combined realism with poetic symbolism. The daisies traditionally symbolize innocence and purity, while the butterfly evokes transformation, the soul, and ephemerality—motifs frequently explored in Symbolist painting. The red book introduces narrative ambiguity: knowledge, memory, or interior life held protectively against the body. Unlike Surdo’s more theatrical mythological or urban allegories, this composition feels contemplative and inward. Yet it still aligns with his broader practice of grounding contemporary psychological states in the language of art history. The painting becomes a meditation on introspection, metamorphosis, and the quiet tension between innocence and awakening, rendered with the authority of classical draftsmanship and layered with 19th-century poetic symbolism. Bruno Surdo Whispers of a Dreamer oil on canvas 36h x 48w in 91.44h x 121.92w cm BRS123 Bruno A. Surdo b. Chicago, 1963 EXHIBITIONS 2023 New Work, Gallery VICTOR, Chicago, IL 2021 Ethos + Truth, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2020 Realities, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2018 Liberation, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Blood Sport, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Art on Paper 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Pier 36, New York, NY SOFA Chicago 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL 2017 POP!ARAZZI, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Coming Attractions, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2015 SOFA Chicago 2015, Ann Nathan Gallery, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Allegories, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2014 Bruno Surdo: Respond, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Modern Metaphors, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL 2013 Bruno Surdo: Revelations, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Vice + Virtue, Northern Illinois University Museum of Art 2012 Contemporary Realism Biennial, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN 2011 Bruno Surdo, University of St. Francis School of Creative Arts, Fort Wayne, IN Uncensored, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2010 Art Chicago 2010, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2009 Art Chicago 2009, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2007 Bruno Surdo, Art Institute of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN 2006 Context/Content: Making Meaning with the Figure, University of Arkansas, Conway, AR Creative Imaginings, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL Bruno Surdo: Cycles, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2005 Art Chicago 2005, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2004 Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2004, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Group Show, Arcadia Gallery, New York, NY Drawings VII, Koplin Del Rio Gallery, West Hollywood, CA Armory Show, New York Armory, New York, NY 2003 Paintings & Drawings, College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL The Art Show, New York, NY Bruno Surdo: New Work, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2003, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2003-10 International Show of Contemporary Artists, Chicago Art Open, Chicago, IL 2002 Bruno Surdo: Perception of Appearance, Frye Museum, Seattle, WA Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Transcendence, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2002, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR 1998 Evanston and Vicinity Artists, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL 1996 Bruno Surdo: A Personal View, University of Wisconsin, Kenosha, WI 1995 Bruno Surdo: Recent Works, College of Lake County, IL AIDS in Our Society, Loyola University, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Life, Struggle, and Hope, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR Bruno Surdo: Dualities of Life, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1999 Group Show, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1998 Group Exhibition, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Chicago, IL 1995 Spiritual Inquiries, Struve Gallery, Chicago, IL 1994 Recent Works, The 14th Annual Juried Exhibition for Lake County Artists, Grayslake, IL Go Figure, Figurative Works on Paper, Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, Chicago, IL SELECTED COLLECTIONS The Re-Birth of Venus, Temporary Loan, Fort Wayne Museum of Art Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR College of Lake County, Greyslake, IL Flashpoint Academy, Chicago IL John Robert Wiltgen Design Shoemaker Ruud Collection Julie & Thomas Danilek Michael Vozzella and Mike Silver Benjamin Fernandez Tom Braake Betsy Colburn Michael Diemand & Lor LaRose Michael Staab & Kathy Brock Bruce Leep Frank Tzurect Mary Foley Rosalyn Carlson Mimmy Turney Janet Long Halstead Billy Hunt Carol Galli Myles Kerrigan Honorable & Mrs. Edwin Berman Theodore Gage Northrop Art Museum Past Present & Future Company Dr. James & Peggy Kemmler Salvatore Monastero Nix & Virginia Lauridsen Joel Miller David & Marlene Zerkel Ann & Andy Abel Claudia Rush Marc Miller Leonard Goldberg Lawrence Pucci Howard Tullman Collection Susan & Manny Kramer James Rinnert Richar Interiors Michael & Nancy Colt Khalid Altijir Dr. Joe Grodman Beryl & Jack Gore Larry Wolf & Eric Naegle Chuck Wolandi Jack Schwab & David Sandelin Thomas Kaczmarek Marti Dinerstein Craig & Michael Golden Mike & Jill Rose SELECTED PUBLICATIONS Bruno Surdo: The Method Artist Responds, by Lucia Mauro, June 26, 2014, anitathemovie blog An Exhibition of Exhibitionism: Bruno Surdo’s ‘Respond’, by Carrie McGath, July 1, 2014, The Chicagoist Website, Arts and Entertainment “Inspired Environs: A renowned designer decks out his Loop abode in art and texture” Modern Luxury, Men’s Book, Spring 2014 “Master Class” What’z Up Magazine, Fort Wayne, 2011 ”9/11 Painting will be on Display” Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, 2011 “Illuminated Images” Fort Wayne Reader, 2011 “Two Faces of Beauty” American Art Collector Magazine, Issue #3 and #59, 2006/2010 “Art and Calamity” Art Papers, 2009 “Versions of the Present, Techniques of the Past” American Artist Magazine, 2004 “Living Artists” Crow Book Publishing, Chicago, IL 2004 “The New Master” by Craig Keller, Chicago Social Magazine, 2004. “Tragedy, Memory, and Honor,” by William Hageman, Chicago Tribune, March 28, 2002 “Mural Depicts Tragedy of 9/11” Art Section, Chicago Sun Times, 2002 Review by Dennis Raverty, Art Papers Magazine, July 2001 WTTW Channel 11...
Oil, Canvas
$3,675
H 24 in W 48 in
Blue, Yellow, and Salmon - Colorful Contemporary Figurative Fashion Oil Painting
By Darwin Estacio Martinez
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Born in 1982 in Manzanillo, Cuba, artist Darwin Estacio Martinez honed his artistic skills at the Professional Academy of Fine Arts "El Alba" in Holguin, and furthered his education ...
Canvas, Oil
$750
H 11.5 in W 9.5 in D 2 in
"My 3 Diamond Hearts" Oil Painting on Canvas with White Floater Frame
By Cindy Shaoul
Located in New York, NY
Motivated by bold color and fast brushwork, we are moved by the simplicity and thick textured oil paints in these works. Shaoul’s “My Heart Collection” is a vibrant and energetic dis...
Oil, Canvas, Glass, Mixed Media
ShaoHua Nong Surrealist Original Oil On Canvas "Staircase"
By Shaohua Nong
Located in New York, NY
Title: Staircase Medium: Oil on canvas Size: 12 x 16 inches Frame: Framing options available! Condition: The painting appears to be in excellent condition. Note: This painting is unstretched Year: 2015 Artist: ShaoHua Nong...
Canvas, Oil
Shot on Goal, Sporting Scene
By John Dobbs
Located in Surfside, FL
John Barnes Dobbs, a determinedly figurative painter who launched his career in the 1950s against the prevailing winds of Abstract Expressionism, lived to see a time when Realism would coexist with Abstraction, Minimalism, Conceptual Art and a variety of other artistic movements. On August 9 Dobbs died at his home in New York’s Greenwich Village at the age of 80. In his final works, Dobbs’ figures appear against flat backgrounds, iconic as the images on tarot cards: acrobats, boxers and contortionists, struggling against the physics of their own bodies and that of the universe. Dobbs had many solo shows at galleries, universities and museums. His work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio, and the Salon Populiste in Paris. Dobbs’ paintings are part of the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; the Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY; the Canton Museum of Art, Canton, OH and the Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, MA. From 1972 to 1996, he was a Professor of Art at John Jay College, City University of New York. He was a member of the National Academy, to which he was elected in 1976. Born in 1931 in a small house by the Lackawanna Railroad...
Canvas, Oil
Play at The Plate, Sporting Scene
By John Dobbs
Located in Surfside, FL
John Barnes Dobbs, a determinedly figurative painter who launched his career in the 1950s against the prevailing winds of Abstract Expressionism, lived to see a time when Realism would coexist with Abstraction, Minimalism, Conceptual Art and a variety of other artistic movements. On August 9 Dobbs died at his home in New York’s Greenwich Village at the age of 80. In his final works, Dobbs’ figures appear against flat backgrounds, iconic as the images on tarot cards: acrobats, boxers and contortionists, struggling against the physics of their own bodies and that of the universe. Dobbs had many solo shows at galleries, universities and museums. His work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio, and the Salon Populiste in Paris. Dobbs’ paintings are part of the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; the Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY; the Canton Museum of Art, Canton, OH and the Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, MA. From 1972 to 1996, he was a Professor of Art at John Jay College, City University of New York. He was a member of the National Academy, to which he was elected in 1976. Born in 1931 in a small house by the Lackawanna Railroad...
Canvas, Oil
Large Modernist Oill Painting Urban Pattern
By John Dobbs
Located in Surfside, FL
John Barnes Dobbs, a determinedly figurative painter who launched his career in the 1950s against the prevailing winds of Abstract Expressionism, lived to see a time when Realism would coexist with Abstraction, Minimalism, Conceptual Art and a variety of other artistic movements. On August 9 Dobbs died at his home in New York’s Greenwich Village at the age of 80. In his final works, Dobbs’ figures appear against flat backgrounds, iconic as the images on tarot cards: acrobats, boxers and contortionists, struggling against the physics of their own bodies and that of the universe. Dobbs had many solo shows at galleries, universities and museums. His work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio, and the Salon Populiste in Paris. Dobbs’ paintings are part of the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; the Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY; the Canton Museum of Art, Canton, OH and the Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, MA. From 1972 to 1996, he was a Professor of Art at John Jay College, City University of New York. He was a member of the National Academy, to which he was elected in 1976. Born in 1931 in a small house by the Lackawanna Railroad in Nutley, New Jersey, where his grandfather had once worked as a railway express clerk, Dobbs grew up in a politically engaged family of artists, musicians and poets. Yet he credited the shining rails that ran past their little house with giving him his first lesson in one-point perspective. Although he studied with several painters during his twenties, he always referred to himself as a “self-taught” artist. At 18, after graduating from high school, Dobbs hoisted a duffle bag onto his shoulder and hitchhiked cross-country. He worked at a variety of odd jobs before returning to the East Coast to study painting with Ben Shahn, Gregorio Prestopino and Jack Levine, who became his mentor and life-long friend. In 1952 Dobbs was drafted into the Army and stationed in Germany. He brought along a sketchbook, which he filled with drawings of soldiers and post-war German life, later published in a chapbook, “Drawings of a Draftee” (1955). After returning to the United States, Dobbs married French-Algerian literary scholar Anne Baudement and had his first one-man show at the Grippi Gallery in New York in 1959. Four years later, painter Raphael Soyer included Dobbs—along with Edward Hopper, Leonard Baskin, Jack Levine and eight other figurative artists—in his large group portrait, Homage to Thomas Eakins. Soyer’s canvas was a cri de coeur for 20th century American Realist painting. But, although he and Dobbs became close friends and artistic compatriots, their work developed along different directions. While Soyer devoted himself to painting from life, Dobbs worked from memory and imagination, employing both literal and symbolic imagery to invoke America’s collective preoccupations and dreams. Those dreams, as Dobbs conceived them, can sometimes be terrifying. In Deodand #2, (1969), painted by Dobbs during the height of the protests against the war in Vietnam, a large revolver points straight at the viewer. Staring down the barrel of the gun is the shadowy face of a helmeted policeman. With its oversized revolver, gripped in huge hands, the work confronts us more directly and aggressively than news footage ever could. The artist is willing to let us squirm before this hyper-realistic nightmare of the American history from which we are still trying to awake. “I’m not afraid to say I’ve made paintings that can be hard to live with,” Dobbs wrote near the end of his life, responding to often-heard comments that his work is both beautiful and disturbing. Certainly we can trace Dobbs’ artistic lineage from Goya through George Grosz, those break-and-enter artists who brought fury into the drawing room and have never been entirely forgiven. As with those earlier, socially conscious painters, one senses that the demons that pursued Dobbs were as much personal as political. That’s one reason the sloppy labels “Realist” and “Social Realist” that have dogged him and his circle for decades don’t shed much light on the paintings. In the unforgettable self-portrait White Mask (1999), Dobbs’ haunting gray eyes stare out of his long, bearded face. They are cool, appraising and unflinching. But instead of a cap on top of his balding head, the artist wears an African totem...
Canvas
Large Modernist Oill Painting Urban Pattern
By John Dobbs
Located in Surfside, FL
John Barnes Dobbs, a determinedly figurative painter who launched his career in the 1950s against the prevailing winds of Abstract Expressionism, lived to see a time when Realism would coexist with Abstraction, Minimalism, Conceptual Art and a variety of other artistic movements. On August 9 Dobbs died at his home in New York’s Greenwich Village at the age of 80. In his final works, Dobbs’ figures appear against flat backgrounds, iconic as the images on tarot cards: acrobats, boxers and contortionists, struggling against the physics of their own bodies and that of the universe. Dobbs had many solo shows at galleries, universities and museums. His work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio, and the Salon Populiste in Paris. Dobbs’ paintings are part of the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; the Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY; the Canton Museum of Art, Canton, OH and the Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, MA. From 1972 to 1996, he was a Professor of Art at John Jay College, City University of New York. He was a member of the National Academy, to which he was elected in 1976. Born in 1931 in a small house by the Lackawanna Railroad in Nutley, New Jersey, where his grandfather had once worked as a railway express clerk, Dobbs grew up in a politically engaged family of artists, musicians and poets. Yet he credited the shining rails that ran past their little house with giving him his first lesson in one-point perspective. Although he studied with several painters during his twenties, he always referred to himself as a “self-taught” artist. At 18, after graduating from high school, Dobbs hoisted a duffle bag onto his shoulder and hitchhiked cross-country. He worked at a variety of odd jobs before returning to the East Coast to study painting with Ben Shahn, Gregorio Prestopino and Jack Levine, who became his mentor and life-long friend. In 1952 Dobbs was drafted into the Army and stationed in Germany. He brought along a sketchbook, which he filled with drawings of soldiers and post-war German life, later published in a chapbook, “Drawings of a Draftee” (1955). After returning to the United States, Dobbs married French-Algerian literary scholar Anne Baudement and had his first one-man show at the Grippi Gallery in New York in 1959. Four years later, painter Raphael Soyer included Dobbs—along with Edward Hopper, Leonard Baskin, Jack Levine and eight other figurative artists—in his large group portrait, Homage to Thomas Eakins. Soyer’s canvas was a cri de coeur for 20th century American Realist painting. But, although he and Dobbs became close friends and artistic compatriots, their work developed along different directions. While Soyer devoted himself to painting from life, Dobbs worked from memory and imagination, employing both literal and symbolic imagery to invoke America’s collective preoccupations and dreams. Those dreams, as Dobbs conceived them, can sometimes be terrifying. In Deodand #2, (1969), painted by Dobbs during the height of the protests against the war in Vietnam, a large revolver points straight at the viewer. Staring down the barrel of the gun is the shadowy face of a helmeted policeman. With its oversized revolver, gripped in huge hands, the work confronts us more directly and aggressively than news footage ever could. The artist is willing to let us squirm before this hyper-realistic nightmare of the American history from which we are still trying to awake. “I’m not afraid to say I’ve made paintings that can be hard to live with,” Dobbs wrote near the end of his life, responding to often-heard comments that his work is both beautiful and disturbing. Certainly we can trace Dobbs’ artistic lineage from Goya through George Grosz, those break-and-enter artists who brought fury into the drawing room and have never been entirely forgiven. As with those earlier, socially conscious painters, one senses that the demons that pursued Dobbs were as much personal as political. That’s one reason the sloppy labels “Realist” and “Social Realist” that have dogged him and his circle for decades don’t shed much light on the paintings. In the unforgettable self-portrait White Mask (1999), Dobbs’ haunting gray eyes stare out of his long, bearded face. They are cool, appraising and unflinching. But instead of a cap on top of his balding head, the artist wears an African totem...
Canvas
Play at The Plate, Sporting Scene
By John Dobbs
Located in Surfside, FL
John Barnes Dobbs, a determinedly figurative painter who launched his career in the 1950s against the prevailing winds of Abstract Expressionism, lived to see a time when Realism would coexist with Abstraction, Minimalism, Conceptual Art and a variety of other artistic movements. On August 9 Dobbs died at his home in New York’s Greenwich Village at the age of 80. In his final works, Dobbs’ figures appear against flat backgrounds, iconic as the images on tarot cards: acrobats, boxers and contortionists, struggling against the physics of their own bodies and that of the universe. Dobbs had many solo shows at galleries, universities and museums. His work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio, and the Salon Populiste in Paris. Dobbs’ paintings are part of the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; the Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY; the Canton Museum of Art, Canton, OH and the Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, MA. From 1972 to 1996, he was a Professor of Art at John Jay College, City University of New York. He was a member of the National Academy, to which he was elected in 1976. Born in 1931 in a small house by the Lackawanna...
Canvas, Oil
Shot on Goal, Sporting Scene
By John Dobbs
Located in Surfside, FL
John Barnes Dobbs, a determinedly figurative painter who launched his career in the 1950s against the prevailing winds of Abstract Expressionism, liv...
Canvas, Oil