Artist Robert Mcintosh

For more than seven decades, artist Robert McIntosh expressed his joy for life through drawing and painting. His approach to visual art ran the spectrum, from bold, monochromatic landscapes to vibrant renderings that are alive with color, never confining his work to a single style. Whether using surreal abstract scenes to evoke ephemeral thought or realism for portraits, McIntosh brought the canvas to life with masterful skill. 

McIntosh was born in 1916 in Vallejo, California, near San Francisco. By the time he was 10, he had a passion for painting. His creative interests intensified when his family moved to Stockton, California, when he was 12, just a few blocks from a local art museum. He visited the museum often, feeding his desire for artistic knowledge.

In 1934, McIntosh received a scholarship to the Pasadena Art Center School of Design. Soon, he was taking commissions to paint portraits. Not long after, notable museums in the state began exhibiting his work, including the San Francisco Museum of Art (now the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) and the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento.

During the Great Depression, McIntosh worked at Disney Studios, creating background art for animated films. In 1940, he married fellow Disney artist Helen Nerbovig. The military drafted him in 1942, and he worked for the U.S. Army Air Force at Hal Roach Studios. After the war, McIntosh split his time between freelance work for animation studios, like Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera, and work on his art, which was exhibited annually at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 

McIntosh continued to paint and sketch throughout his career, consistently producing works of diverse media. He experimented with Expressionism, Cubism, Impressionism and collage. He lived and worked in Bel Air, California, until he died in 2010. Through his many decades of creative expression, McIntosh left a body of work that continues to be treasured by collectors today.

On 1stDibs, find Robert McIntosh’s figurative paintings, landscapes and drawings and watercolors.

Painting is an art form that has spanned innumerable cultures, with artists using the medium to tell stories, explore and communicate ideas and express themselves. To bring abstract, landscape and still-life paintings into your home is to celebrate and share in the long tradition of this discipline.

When we look at paintings, particularly those that originated in the past, we learn about history, other cultures and countries of the world. Like every other work of art, paintings — whether they are contemporary creations or works that were made during the 19th century — can often help us clearly see and understand the world around us in a meaningful and interesting way.

Cave walls were the canvases for what were arguably the world’s first landscape paintings, which depict natural scenery through art. Portrait paintings and drawings, which, along with sculpture, were how someone’s appearance was recorded prior to the advent of photography, are at least as old as Ancient Egypt. In the Netherlands, landscapes were a major theme for painters as early as the 1500s. Later, artists in Greece, Rome and elsewhere created vast wall paintings to decorate stately homes, churches and tombs. Today, creating a wall of art is a wonderful way to enhance your space, showcase beautiful pieces and tie an interior design together.

No matter your preference, whether you favor Post-Impressionist paintings, animal paintings, Surrealism, Pop art or another movement or specific period, arranging art on a blank wall allows you to evoke emotions in a room while also showing off your tastes and interests. A symmetrical wall arrangement may comprise a grid of four to six pieces or, for an odd number of works, a horizontal row. Asymmetrical arrangements, which may be small clusters of art or large, salon-style gallery walls, have a more collected and eclectic feel. Download the 1stDibs app, which includes a handy “View on Wall” feature that allows you to see how a particular artwork will look on a particular wall, and read about how to arrange wall art. And if you’re searching for the perfect palette for your interior design project, what better place to turn than to the art world’s masters of color?

On 1stDibs, you’ll find an expansive collection of paintings and other fine art for your home or office. Browse abstract paintings, portrait paintings, paintings by popular artists and more today.