Abstract Animal Paintings
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.
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil, Board
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Canvas, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Animal Paintings
Acrylic, Board
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
Early 2000s Abstract Animal Paintings
Mixed Media, Cardboard
Early 2000s Abstract Animal Paintings
Mixed Media, Cardboard
Early 2000s Abstract Animal Paintings
Mixed Media, Cardboard
1960s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil, Wood Panel, Graphite
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Canvas, Cotton Canvas, Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil, Panel
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil, Cardboard
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Canvas, Cotton Canvas, Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Cotton Canvas, Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Canvas, Cotton Canvas, Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Paper, Plastic, Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Plastic, Paper, Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil, Cardboard
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Acrylic, Canvas
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Animal Paintings
Canvas, Oil
Artist Comments
"I'm a tough guy, don't mess with me," narrates artist Heather Foster on how she imagines the horse's thoughts. She paints the robust stallion in her alluring...
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Animal Paintings
Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Mixed Media, Cardboard
Artist Comments
"I admire pelicans. They are really sensational birds," shares artist Andres Lopez. "Being lovers of the sea, these birds are not usually seen in any other pa...
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil, Pins
Artist Comments
Artist Emil Morhardt captures a group of acorn woodpeckers diving together from a tree. “They really do this,†says Emil. He spends hours with his lens trained on the birds as they argue loudly among themselves until finally taking a jump. The woodpeckers are painted on a thick layer of absorbent ground, giving them a slightly three-dimensional appearance against the gray-stained canvas.
About the Artist
Emil Morhardt is an acrylic painter from Santa Barbara, California who expresses his passion for birds through realistic acrylic paintings. He paints at home in a studio room that has large windows and a north-facing view of the mountains. He observes the animals from this window, watching roadrunners, foxes, bobcats, deer, and coyote run by. Surrounded by this wildlife, Emil paints bird portraits reminiscent of those by artist John James Audubon. He bases his paintings off hundreds of photographs he takes of birds in the wild and at wildlife recovery centers. Emil captures the freedom and inquisitiveness that birds display in the natural world. Before painting birds, he painted landscapes of San Francisco and the Eastern Sierra. Emil was raised in the high desert of California and learned to paint from his father, who was one of the early California watercolorists...
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Animal Paintings
Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Cotton Canvas, Oil
Artist Comments
"There is that point when kids are looking grown but at the same time still look like the young kids that they are," muses artist Heather Foster. "This guy wa...
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Animal Paintings
Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Metal
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Animal Paintings
Watercolor
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Mixed Media, Handmade Paper, Monotype
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Paper, Ink, Mixed Media, Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil, Pins
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Mixed Media, Screen, Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil, Panel
1980s Abstract Animal Paintings
Paper, Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Ink, Mixed Media, Oil, Acrylic, Board
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil, Panel
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Mixed Media, Acrylic, Screen
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Mixed Media, Acrylic, Screen
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Ink, Mixed Media, Color Pencil, Screen
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Ink, Mixed Media, Color Pencil, Screen
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Mixed Media, Oil
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil, Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Oil, Panel
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Paper, Ink, Mixed Media, Oil, Acrylic
2010s Abstract Animal Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic





