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Post-Modern Contemporary Art

POSTMODERN STYLE

Postmodern design was a short-lived movement that manifested itself chiefly in Italy and the United States in the early 1980s. The characteristics of vintage postmodern furniture and other postmodern objects and decor for the home included loud-patterned, usually plastic surfaces; strange proportions, vibrant colors and weird angles; and a vague-at-best relationship between form and function.

ORIGINS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN

  • Emerges during the 1960s; popularity explodes during the ’80s
  • A reaction to prevailing conventions of modernism by mainly American architects
  • Architect Robert Venturi critiques modern architecture in his Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966)
  • Theorist Charles Jencks, who championed architecture filled with allusions and cultural references, writes The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977)
  • Italian design collective the Memphis Group, also known as Memphis Milano, meets for the first time (1980) 
  • Memphis collective debuts more than 50 objects and furnishings at Salone del Milano (1981)
  • Interest in style declines, minimalism gains steam

CHARACTERISTICS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN

  • Dizzying graphic patterns and an emphasis on loud, off-the-wall colors
  • Use of plastic and laminates, glass, metal and marble; lacquered and painted wood 
  • Unconventional proportions and abundant ornamentation
  • Playful nods to Art Deco and Pop art

POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW

VINTAGE POSTMODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS

Critics derided postmodern design as a grandstanding bid for attention and nothing of consequence. Decades later, the fact that postmodernism still has the power to provoke thoughts, along with other reactions, proves they were not entirely correct.

Postmodern design began as an architectural critique. Starting in the 1960s, a small cadre of mainly American architects began to argue that modernism, once high-minded and even noble in its goals, had become stale, stagnant and blandly corporate. Later, in Milan, a cohort of creators led by Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendinia onetime mentor to Sottsass and a key figure in the Italian Radical movement — brought the discussion to bear on design.

Sottsass, an industrial designer, philosopher and provocateur, gathered a core group of young designers into a collective in 1980 they called Memphis. Members of the Memphis Group,  which would come to include Martine Bedin, Michael Graves, Marco Zanini, Shiro Kuramata, Michele de Lucchi and Matteo Thun, saw design as a means of communication, and they wanted it to shout. That it did: The first Memphis collection appeared in 1981 in Milan and broke all the modernist taboos, embracing irony, kitsch, wild ornamentation and bad taste.

Memphis works remain icons of postmodernism: the Sottsass Casablanca bookcase, with its leopard-print plastic veneer; de Lucchi’s First chair, which has been described as having the look of an electronics component; Martine Bedin’s Super lamp: a pull-toy puppy on a power-cord leash. Even though it preceded the Memphis Group’s formal launch, Sottsass’s iconic Ultrafragola mirror — in its conspicuously curved plastic shell with radical pops of pink neon — proves striking in any space and embodies many of the collective’s postmodern ideals. 

After the initial Memphis show caused an uproar, the postmodern movement within furniture and interior design quickly took off in America. (Memphis fell out of fashion when the Reagan era gave way to cool 1990’s minimalism.) The architect Robert Venturi had by then already begun a series of plywood chairs for Knoll Inc., with beefy, exaggerated silhouettes of traditional styles such as Queen Anne and Chippendale. In 1982, the new firm Swid Powell enlisted a group of top American architects, including Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Stanley Tigerman and Venturi to create postmodern tableware in silver, ceramic and glass.

On 1stDibs, the vintage postmodern furniture collection includes chairs, coffee tables, sofas, decorative objects, table lamps and more.

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Style: Post-Modern
Color:  Brown
Julián Aragoneses's Modern Painting
By Julian Aragoneses
Located in Marbella, ES
Cloth and oil painting and sculpture hybrid by contemporary Spanish artist Julian Aragoneses. Inspired by the Abstract Expressionist movement, he shows that painting is still very st...
Category

Late 20th Century Spanish Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Fabric, Wood, Paint

Ed Moses Signed Limited Edition Screenprint "Ikuru Speak-No" 11/250, 1990
Located in Studio City, CA
A wonderful and rivetting work by American/ California artist Ed Moses titled "Ikuru Speak-No". This work is on wove and Japanese paper (The print was made with two attached sheets...
Category

1990s American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Glass, Wood, Paper

Regina Heinz Wallpiece Pottery Monumental Entrance
Located in BUNGAY, SUFFOLK
Regina Heinz B. 1957 ENTRANCE 1999 Monumental wall piece made in six sections Regina's award winning work has been purchased by the National Art Collector's Fund and is presented in collections worldwide, including the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the Museum of Contemporary Ceramics in Gifu, Japan, the International Ceramics Museum in Faenza, and the Yingge County Ceramics Museum in Taipei. With degrees in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and in ceramics from Goldsmiths’ College, London, Regina combines in her work the sensibility of a fine artist with outstanding expertise in ceramics. As an artist, Regina draws on her love for her native countryside and her background as a painter. Her passion for colour, form and beautiful ceramic surfaces led her to set up her architectural ceramics practice in 2011 to explore the integration of art, architecture and landscape. Regina regularly works with international interior designers, art consultants and private clients world-wide. Her portfolio includes an exclusive 3D tile line for the American tile retailer Ann Sacks...
Category

1990s English Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Pottery

Gates-Project for Central Park, Lithography by Christo , New York, 2004
Located in Madrid, ES
Contemporary lithography in colors from the Project for Central Park, New York City, created in 2004 by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The print is framed in a white wooden frame with a ...
Category

Early 2000s American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Glass, Wood, Paper

Two Nude Women Signed Print by Barbara Wood
Located in Delray Beach, FL
Exceptional framed/signed print by Barbara A Wood. Subject is two nude girls walking side by side in the forest.   
Category

Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Glass, Wood, Paper

Large Charles Lee Oil on Canvas Painting "Music for Two", Certified
Located in Miami, FL
Large contemporary oil on canvas painting by Charles Lee titled "Music for Two". This beautiful piece of art will enhance any modern or contemporary setting, anywhere vibrant colore...
Category

20th Century American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Paint, Wood

Jean Michel Basquiat College and Picture by Anna Bianchi 2020
Located in Lucca, IT
Questo ritratto di Gian MIchel Basquiat è eseguito con tecnica mista collage carta e pittura su tela , firmata , davanti e dietro ,dall' artista contemporanea Anna Bianca ., Anna si...
Category

2010s Italian Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Fabric, Acrylic

Japan Abstract Paintings Mixed Media by S. Junichi, 2000s
Located in MIlano, IT
Japan Abstract paintings Mixed media by S. Junichi, 2000s Fantastic and real decorative mixed media abstract painting on white canvas. This incredible painting is perfect in a moder...
Category

Early 2000s Japanese Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Wood

Postmodern Brass and Mirror Crucifix in the Style of Fontana Arte, Italy
Located in Bresso, Lombardy
Made in Italy in the style of Fontana Arte, 1970s. It is in bronzed mirror and brass. This is a vintage piece, therefore it might show slight traces, but it can be considered as in...
Category

1970s Italian Vintage Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Brass

John Link "Gator Gait" Acrylic on Canvas, dtd 1986
Located in Dallas, TX
John Link (d. 2021) worked as a professor of art at Western Michigan University. From the artisit: "When I was in philosophy, my fellow grad students agreed that we were in philosophy because we couldn’t do anything else. But the same can be said of art. My problem with philosophy was that it requires you to stay still to read, and that bothered me a lot. I also found art to be the antithesis of philosophy. I was told I should study all the great aestheticians because I made a lot of paintings. I told the department head that those people were talking about something other than making art. I did not exactly know what, but art has a kinaesthetic element, both mental and physical, that philosophy does not. Nor is art all that contemplative. You must work your way through a murky soup of possibilities, and all that stuff. Then I flunked the draft physical and did not have to stay in philosophy, so I started taking art classes. Philosophy, understood as wonderment, is a good place to begin, certainly. English was my worst subject in high school and grade school, math and science my best. When I went to college I was supposed to be an engineer. But I took up English because I thought college was a place where you worked on your weaknesses. Actually have a double BA in Philosophy and English. So that’s how I got going, reading great writers...
Category

20th Century American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Paint

Set of 4 Signed Abstract Intaglio Prints by Kazuko Watanabe, Framed
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Set of 4 signed abstract intaglio prints by Kazuko Watanabe, framed. Signed in pencil by the artist and numbered 16/30, 19/20, 7/10, 9/10. Kazuko Watanabe is a graduate of the San F...
Category

1990s American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper, Wood, Glass

Italian Post-Modern Drawing on Paper in Ink and Pantone, 2000s
Located in MIlano, IT
Italian post-modern Drawing on paper in ink and pantone, 2000s Drawing on paper in ink and yellow and brown pantone, representing figures halfway between human and animal, and a flo...
Category

Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Wood, Paper

Ron English “Inbred Hybrid” Serigraph
Located in Doylestown, PA
One of the most prolific and recognizable artists alive today, Ron English has bombed the global landscape with unforgettable images, on the street, in museums, in movies, books and ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper

Japan Oil Abstract Paintings T3 Resistance T4 Persistence Tetsuro Shimizu, 2011
Located in MIlano, IT
Japan Oil abstract paintings T3 Resistance and T4 Persistence Tetsuro Shimizu, 2011 Pair of abstract paintings titled T3 Resistance and ...
Category

2010s Japanese Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Wood, Canvas

Don Quixote by Vladimir Ryklin
By Vladimir Ryklin
Located in Dallas, TX
Presenting a gorgeous piece of contemporary art, namely, a Vladimir Ryklin Oil on Paper of Don Quixote De La Mancha. Giltwood frame, matted and under glass. Signed bottom right. VLADIMIR RYKLIN: “Born in 1934 and educated in Moscow, USSR, Vladimir Ryklin, upon completion of his studies, took a position with the Central Commercial Art Bureau as an illustrator and poster artist. Ryklin has gained wide recognition as a poster artist, not only in his homeland but at exhibitions in France, Belgium and England; his awards include Best Poster Honors in both Moscow and Bulgaria. New York City Ballet, Dresden Opera and Vienna Opera...
Category

20th Century American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper

Ramon dels Horts Contemporary Artwork Burned Wood, circa 2018
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Contemporary artwork by the artist Ramon dels Horts. In good original condition, with minor wear consistent with age and use, preserving a beautiful patina. Material: Wood ...
Category

2010s Spanish Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Wood

Lawrence Weiner Hand Signed Artwork 'Turf, Stake and String', 1968
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Hand signed early work 'Turf, stake and string' (The S.M.S. portfolio) from Lawrence Weiner, 1968. The piece instructs the user to "adhere the sheet to any vertical surface". Mat...
Category

1960s British Vintage Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper

Amador Toril's "CAN" Photography, Spain, 2020.
Located in Madrid, ES
Title: "Can" Artist: Amador Toril Origin: Spain, 2020 Dimensions: 106 x 4 x 156 (h) cm.
Category

2010s Spanish Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Glass, Wood, Paper

Gaetano Pesce Exhibition Poster Bernini, Italy, 2001
Located in Roosendaal, Noord Brabant
Rare exhibition poster designed by Gaetano Pesce for Bernini, Italy 2001. This poster was an exhibition poster for the Bernini Exhibition at Gal...
Category

Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Glass, Wood, Paper

Striking Xlarge Contemporary Painting by California Artist Allen Perrier
Located in San Diego, CA
Beautiful colors and great technic on this striking geometric acrylic on canvas by san Diego artist Allen Perrier circa 2012. Large size.
Category

21st Century and Contemporary North American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas

Mixed Media Collage of Antique Photographs and Letters by Ben Freeman
Located in Peabody, MA
A mixed media work by noted artist and photographer Ben Freeman. This large scale work features a collage of antique gentleman’s photographs and authentic ...
Category

Early 2000s American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Lead

Ramon Dels Horts Contemporary Artwork Pencil on Wood, circa 2018
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Contemporary artwork by the artist Ramon dels Horts. In good original condition, with minor wear consistent with age and use, preserving a beautiful patina. Material: Wood ...
Category

2010s Spanish Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Wood

Maximilian Wiedemann, Sculpture Neon Lamp "it’s all bling to me", 2015
Located in Saint ouen, FR
Maximilian Wiedemann - sculpture neon lamp "It’s all bling to me" - 2015 Neon, metal and plexiglass Measures: 95 x 72cm Signé et numéroté sur 3...
Category

2010s European Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Metal

Cubo-Futurism Abstract Painting in Pastel Colors, Fresco on Board, c. 1988
Located in Fort Lauderdale, FL
1980s textured abstract painting in the style of Cubo-Futurism, an early 20th century art movement from Russia which fuses artistic elements found in both Cubism and Futurist artwork...
Category

1980s European Vintage Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Plywood, Paint, Gesso, Acrylic

Set of 4 Signed Abstract Intaglio Prints by Kazuko Watanabe, Framed
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Set of 4 signed abstract intaglio prints by Kazuko Watanabe, framed. Signed in pencil by the artist and numbered 16/30, 19/20, 7/10, 9/10. Kazuko Watanabe is a graduate of the San...
Category

1990s American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Wood, Glass, Paper

Large Framed Drawing Ethan Murrow
Located in Atlanta, GA
Artist: Ethan Murrow, (American, 1975-) Title: Reversing Extinction III Medium: Graphite on paper Date: 2005 Size: 40" x 40" Frame: 48" x 48" black s...
Category

Early 2000s American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Wood

Set of 4 Signed Abstract Intaglio Prints by Kazuko Watanabe, Framed
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Set of 4 signed abstract intaglio prints by Kazuko Watanabe, framed. Signed in pencil by the artist and numbered 16/30, 19/20, 7/10, 9/10. Kazuko Watanabe is a graduate of the San...
Category

1990s American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Wood, Glass, Paper

Large Framed Drawing Ethan Murrow
Located in Atlanta, GA
Artist: Ethan Murrow, (American, 1975-) Title: Reversing Extinction IV Medium: Graphite on paper Date: 2005 Size: 40" x 40" Frame: 48" x 48" black sh...
Category

Early 2000s American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Wood

'The Myth of the Submarine' by Ben Cockett, Oil on Canvas, 2017
Located in London, GB
‘The Myth Of The Submarine,’ is a painting based on the distant memory of the artist, Ben Cockett, spotting a fast moving periscope, presumably from a military submarine, from the be...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary British Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Wood, Canvas

James Strombotne painting "Spring Bouquet" acrylic on canvas
Located in Camden, ME
James Strombotne is a contemporary artist who has had a successful career since 1956. His artwork is held in many prestigious museums and private collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Hirschhorn Museum of the Smithsonian Institute. According to Strombotne, "Any subject is fair game...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

David Merrics, "MATRIX", Oversized Metal Wood Wall Art, USA, 2006
Located in Los Angeles, CA
David Merrics, "MATRIX", oversized metal wood wall art, USA, 2006.
Category

Early 2000s American Post-Modern Contemporary Art

Materials

Concrete, Metal, Metallic Thread

Post-modern contemporary art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a broad range of unique Post-Modern contemporary art for sale on 1stDibs. Many of these items were first offered in the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artisans have continued to produce works inspired by this style. If you’re looking to add vintage contemporary art created in this style to your space, the works available on 1stDibs include wall decorations, decorative objects, serveware, ceramics, silver and glass and other home furnishings, frequently crafted with paper, wood and other materials. If you’re shopping for used Post-Modern contemporary art made in a specific country, there are North America, United States, and Asia pieces for sale on 1stDibs. While there are many designers and brands associated with original contemporary art, popular names associated with this style include Gail Folwell, José 'Jojo' Legaspi, Jeff Koons, and Peter Shire. It’s true that these talented designers have at times inspired knockoffs, but our experienced specialists have partnered with only top vetted sellers to offer authentic pieces that come with a buyer protection guarantee. Prices for contemporary art differ depending upon multiple factors, including designer, materials, construction methods, condition and provenance. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $250 and tops out at $19,600 while the average work can sell for $4,200.

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