Susan Chen
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Plaster, Paint, Paper, Mixed Media
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Plaster, Paint, Paper, Mixed Media
1980s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Mixed Media, Acrylic, Archival Paper, Oil Pastel
2010s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
Etching
2010s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
Etching
2010s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
Etching
People Also Browsed
1960s Cubist Landscape Paintings
Oil, Laid Paper
Early 20th Century French Other Paintings
Canvas
Mid-20th Century Expressionist Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Oil
20th Century American Modern Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Oil
Mid-20th Century British Modern Prints
Paper
Mid-20th Century Hong Kong Brutalist Wall-mounted Sculptures
Brass, Copper
21st Century and Contemporary Books
Paper
21st Century and Contemporary Books
Paper
20th Century Japanese Lacquer
Lacquer
Vintage 1930s British Chinoiserie Floor Lamps
Lacquer
Vintage 1970s French Expressionist Paintings
Paint, Paper
Antique Late 19th Century Chinese Late Victorian Scholar's Objects
Stone
1950s Modern Figurative Prints
Lithograph
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Paintings
Paper
1920s Post-Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Pastel, Laid Paper
Vintage 1980s Italian Art Nouveau Sterling Silver
Gold Plate, Sterling Silver, Enamel
Recent Sales
2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings
Acrylic, Wood Panel, Gel Pen
A Close Look at abstract Art
Beginning in the early 20th century, abstract art became a leading style of modernism. Rather than portray the world in a way that represented reality, as had been the dominating style of Western art in the previous centuries, abstract paintings, prints and sculptures are marked by a shift to geometric forms, gestural shapes and experimentation with color to express ideas, subject matter and scenes.
Although abstract art flourished in the early 1900s, propelled by movements like Fauvism and Cubism, it was rooted in the 19th century. In the 1840s, J.M.W. Turner emphasized light and motion for atmospheric paintings in which concrete details were blurred, and Paul Cézanne challenged traditional expectations of perspective in the 1890s.
Some of the earliest abstract artists — Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint — expanded on these breakthroughs while using vivid colors and forms to channel spiritual concepts. Painter Piet Mondrian, a Dutch pioneer of the art movement, explored geometric abstraction partly owing to his belief in Theosophy, which is grounded in a search for higher spiritual truths and embraces philosophers of the Renaissance period and medieval mystics. Black Square, a daringly simple 1913 work by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, was a watershed statement on creating art that was free “from the dead weight of the real world,” as he later wrote.
Surrealism in the 1920s, led by artists such as Salvador Dalí, Meret Oppenheim and others, saw painters creating abstract pieces in order to connect to the subconscious. When Abstract Expressionism emerged in New York during the mid-20th century, it similarly centered on the process of creation, in which Helen Frankenthaler’s expressive “soak-stain” technique, Jackson Pollock’s drips of paint, and Mark Rothko’s planes of color were a radical new type of abstraction.
Conceptual art, Pop art, Hard-Edge painting and many other movements offered fresh approaches to abstraction that continued into the 21st century, with major contemporary artists now exploring it, including Anish Kapoor, Mark Bradford, El Anatsui and Julie Mehretu.
Find original abstract paintings, sculptures, prints and other art on 1stDibs.
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