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Contemporary Art

CONTEMPORARY STYLE

Used to refer to a time rather than an aesthetic, Contemporary art generally describes pieces created after 1970 or being made by living artists anywhere in the world. This immediacy means it encompasses art responding to the present moment through diverse subjects, media and themes. Contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, performance, digital art, video and more frequently includes work that is attempting to reshape current ideas about what art can be, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of candy to memorialize a lover he lost to AIDS-related complications to Jenny Holzer’s ongoing “Truisms,” a Conceptual series that sees provocative messages printed on billboards, T-shirts, benches and other public places that exist outside of formal exhibitions and the conventional “white cube” of galleries.

Contemporary art has been pushing the boundaries of creative expression for years. Its disruption of the traditional concepts of art are often aiming to engage viewers in complex questions about identity, society and culture. In the latter part of the 20th century, contemporary movements included Land art, in which artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer create large-scale, site-specific sculptures, installations and other works in soil and bodies of water; Sound art, with artists such as Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz centering art on sonic experiences; and New Media art, in which mass media and digital culture inform the work of artists such as Nam June Paik and Rafaël Rozendaal.

The first decades of the 21st century have seen the growth of Contemporary African art, the revival of figurative painting, the emergence of street art and the rise of NFTs, unique digital artworks that are powered by blockchain technology.

Major Contemporary artists practicing now include Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Kara Walker.

Find a collection of Contemporary prints, photography, paintings, sculptures and other art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Contemporary
Skindeep - 21st Century, Polaroid, Nude Photography, Contemporary
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Skindeep - 2018, 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2018-4...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Concentric Circles - Colorful Abstract Figurative Sculptural Modern Artwork
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Nebraka-based Jamie Burmeister is a sculptural artist known for his original artworks incorporating original small bronze figures, standing at just up to 4 inches tall. His unique fi...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Bronze

Barricade - Contemporary, Portrait, Women, Polaroid, 21st Century, Nude
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Barricade, 2020 50x50cm, Edition 1/7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory - PL2020-90...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Bedtime Story II - 21st Century, Polaroid, Nude, Photography, Contemporary
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Bedtime Story II - 2017, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid, not mounted. Signature label and certificate. Artist inventory PL2017-484 Ki...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Thursday s Child - Contemporary, Nude, Women, Polaroid, 21st Century, Color
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
'Thursday's Child' part of the series 'A Girl called N.' - 2019 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid. Signature label and certificate....
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Still Life - Oil Painting by Franco Marzilli - 1970s
Located in Roma, IT
Oil on wooden table realized by Franco Marzilli (1934-2010) in 1970s. Hand signed lower left. Very good condition. Franco Marzilli was born in Rome in 1934. He received his first ...
Category

1970s Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil

Zephyr Monumental SS 2/7 - abstract, polished stainless steel, outdoor sculpture
Located in Bloomfield, ON
Jeremy Guy's new sculpture series are available in Mirror Polished Stainless Steel, Gold Finish or Painted in Black or White. This Zephyr sculpture can be ordered in multiple sizes, ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Stainless Steel

Hidden in dots 21st Century Contemporary portrait Painting of a man
Located in Nuenen, Noord Brabant
Tania Rivilis Hidden in dots 30 x 30 cm framed (included in price) 33,5 x 33,5 cm Oilpaint on wood panel Tania Rivilis (b. 1986) 2022 winner of the 'William Locke Price' ( £ 30.0...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Attracted by the Sea, Rock Formation - minimalist landscape photography, limited
Located in Vienna, Vienna
Gerald Berghammer - Black and white seascape photo. Large rocks in water, with one rock balanced on a smaller rock, creating a mushroom-like formation. Archival pigment ink print as ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Digital Pigment

Humorous Figurative Queer Gesture Painting, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas. "Piriquí"
Located in FISTERRA, ES
This small-format painting by Inés Silvalde, created in 2019, transforms a playful and rebellious hand gesture into a queer celebration of irreverence and self-expression. Titled Pir...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Whispering Grove II - Original Minimalist Blue Abstract Landscape Artwork
Located in Los Angeles, CA
The organic aesthetic and textures of Peter Kuttner’s original boho minimalist artworks are the result of patient layering and unique uses of media. Through a combination of collage ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Mixed Media, Acrylic

Cabinet of Curiosities - Contemporary salvaged wood found objects Sculpture
Located in DE
Lesley Hilling is a self-taught English artist known for her intricate constructions made entirely from salvaged wood and found objects. Her work reflects a deep connection to the pa...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Wood, Found Objects

Anatomy Lesson, Segment 10 (Small Figure Painting of Two Muscular Nude Males)
Located in Hudson, NY
Anatomy Lesson, Segment 10 (modern figurative oil painting of two nude men from upper thigh to chest) by Robert Goldstrom 2024 oil on linen 12 x 12 inches signed and in excellent con...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Linen, Oil

"Apparition at the Border of Language"
Located in Lyons, CO
This print presents a fictitious encounter between contemporary colonial forces and Native Americans who are defenders of immigrant refugees and displaced populations. The artist de...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Lithograph

Room 102 - Collector Portfolio # 6 out 7 - 12 Fine Art Prints Nude photography
Located in Brussels, BE
His series "Room" or "My carnival" evokes the fantasy of the mistress, fetishist eroticism, 5 to 7, free fantasy. Eric produces erotic art without ever biting into porn-chic always being more obsessed with aesthetics than with simulacrum. If he worships more than one of these predecessors who poured into more outrage, it is freely that he suggests to the imagination to imagine without capturing the fantasy of the viewer. The choice had been made of very high quality prints: cotton fiber base baryta paper without chlorine and high grammage (310 gr / m²), pigment inks. They carry on the back an authentication label signed by Eric Ceccarini The enhancement of this limited edition of 100 copies is ensured by the use of a unique high-quality box to keep the 12 fine art prints This is edition #1/100 Eric is a Belgian artist born in 1965. He gained a Degree in Photography from INFAC, Brussels in 1987. Since then he has been a fashion photographer working with many of the top houses. Elle, Marie-Claire, L'Oréal, Levi's, Coca Cola, Virgin, Saab, Delvaux, Lowe Lintas and Ogilvy are some of his clients. Among other distinctions, his photography for the Saab cabrio 9-3 campaign was awarded the Silver Lion at the Cannes International Advertising Festival. Eric is set apart from many of his colleagues by his way of shunning technical artifice and working in natural light. This results in soft, velvety, almost painterly images. Nowadays in his artistic works, he captures women's essence and soul, transcending mere physical representation. Eric's "AMNIOS" series of soul portraits- the model appear in suspended animation, as if they were about to born, and full of hidden secrets. This represents a new conceptual departure for Eric, who began as a fashion photographer, moving on to classic artistic nudes...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Pigment, Rag Paper

Girl Nude (29 Palms, CA) - Polaroid, Contemporary, 20th Century
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Girl Nude (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid, Signature label and Certificate. Artist inventory Number ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Chroma-Q- 21st Century Contemporary portrait Painting
Located in Nuenen, Noord Brabant
Tania Rivilis Chroma-Q 41 x 29 cm framed (included in price) 44 x 32 cm Oilpaint on wood panel Tania Rivilis (b. 1986) 2022 winner of the 'William Locke Price' ( £ 30.000 ) from ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Isamar, New York 1995
Located in München, BY
Total Edition of 15 signed and numbered Also available in: 90 x 120 cm / 35.4 x 47.2 in Portrait of a woman from above. Thierry Le Gouès, born in Brittany, France, is currently a f...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Black and White

ELLA FITZGERALD Lithograph, Celebrity Caricature Portrait, Female Jazz Vocalist
Located in Union City, NJ
ELLA FITZGERALD is a limited edition lithograph by the renowned artist/caricaturist Al Hirschfeld (1903-2003) printed using traditional lithography techniques on archival printmaking...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Lithograph

9/11
Located in Brooklyn, NY
​Tom Otterness's offset lithograph print, titled "9/11," serves as a poignant tribute to the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Hand-signed and dated by the artist, this piece feat...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Offset

Deep Red glossy ceramic balloon sculpture handmade for wall, ceiling - Large
Located in Tel Aviv, IL
This Red glossy ceramic balloon sculpture is a balloon for life and an art collectors piece. Its Vivid glossy color enhances sophisticated and cheerful space environment. handmade in...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Ceramic, Clay, Coating, Glaze

Laurel Forest, old bent Tree, color photography, landscape, limited edition
Located in Vienna, Vienna
Laurel Forest Study 1, Portugal - no. 21247 - Color fine art landscape photography. Archival pigment ink print as part of a limited edition of 8. All Gerald Berghammer prints are ma...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Digital Pigment

Tapestry of Beauty (Anike) 3 - 21st Century, Contemporary, Figurative, Portrait
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
Shipping Procedure Ships in a well-protected tube from Nigeria This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity (Issued by the Gal...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

END OF INNOCENCE by Paula Craioveanu Large Blue Nude inspired by Matisse
Located in Forest Hills, NY
"End of Innocence" Part of "Blue Nude" series, inspired by Matisse, works on paper. Female nude seen by a female artist - female gaze. Original large...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Tempera, Paper

Velocity Bloom, Contemporary Abstract Painting by Matt Higgins
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This large-scale oil painting on a wood panel bursts with kinetic energy and bold color, dominated by a vivid red background that envelops and contrasts with dynamic strokes of blue,...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Kiss
Located in London, GB
Catalysed ink 2 colour silkscreen on mirrored polished steel 300 x 300mm Edition of 300 + 10 APs Artist stamp (printed), numbered Devoted to the exploration of visual culture and im...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Mirror, Screen

"Beaded Flower 10" Oversized terracotta beads, Ceramics, Flora Hanging Sculpture
Located in Philadelphia, PA
"Beaded Flower 10" is an original piece by Jeff Rubio made from terra cotta and stoneware beads, glaze, rope, metal hardware, steel paperclip. This pieces measures 30"h x 7.5"w x 2.5...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Metal, Steel

White Cliffs of Etretat, Alabaster Coast - seascape - limited color photography
Located in Vienna, Vienna
Gerald Berghammer - Color Photography. Cliffs along a coastline with green vegetation, white rock formations, and a calm sea under a partly cloudy sky. Archival pigment ink print as ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Digital Pigment

Rocks on the Shore, Great Rock, Sand Beach, color photograph, limited edition
Located in Vienna, Vienna
Color fine art long landscape photography. Archival pigment ink print as part of a limited edition of 7. All Gerald Berghammer prints are made to order in limited editions on Hahnemu...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Digital Pigment

The mountains we dream in - B.Schaumann Contemporary architectural Painting
Located in DE
Barber Schaumann is a contemporary artist known for her vibrant, abstract interpretations of the female form. Her work combines bold colors with modern, geometric shapes, blending el...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

In too Deep
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
In too Deep - 2020, 20x20cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proof Archival Print, based on the Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-887. Not m...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Black and White, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Dusk from an Airplane, Abstract Aerial Diptych, Giclée, Deep Blue to Yellow Hue
Located in Barcelona, ES
Cyd Fontaine (Lausanne, 1992) is a contemporary artist renowned for her captivating use of dreamy atmospheric gradients, which has helped her carve a distinctive niche in the world o...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Giclée, Archival Pigment

Paris with Apples Neo Mythology by Paula Craioveanu
Located in Forest Hills, NY
"Paris with Apples" The original legend says Paris, prince of Troy had one golden apple, and had to choose between 3 goddesses. Modern Paris has more than one apple, and he is depi...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper, Ink, Tempera

Minimal Landscape –Original Abstract Oil Painting on Canvas by Marilina Marchica
Located in Agrigento, AG
Artist: Marilina Marchica (b. 1984, Italy) Title: Landscape Year: 2025 Medium: Oil on canvas Size: 80 × 80 × 3.5 cm Signature: Signed on the reverse Certificate of Authenticity: Incl...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Wild Things (Till Death do us Part) - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Wild Things (Till Death Do Us Part) - 2005, 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inven...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

"Hojas" 2006 (Portrait of woman 3) Artist Proof Digital Print 11x8.5in Cuban Art
Located in Miami, FL
Zaida del Rio (Cuba, 1954) 'Hojas' (Portrait of a woman #3), 2016 A/P (Artist Proof) Digital print on paper 11.1 x 8.3 in. (28 x 21 cm.) Hand signed in pencil. Unframed Ref: DER-203 ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Digital

REFLECTIONS 1 - Contemporary Atmospheric Landscape, Modern Seascape Painting
Located in Salzburg, AT
A few words of the artist about his art: When i painting landscapes, I usually choose simple geometric arrangements, contrasts of verticals and levels. I juxtapose the smooth surface of the sky with the rough texture of earth or grass. I paint symmetrical reflections in water and rhythmic repetitions of trees. Even an ordinary, seemingly uninteresting fragment of the suburban landscape hides a beauty that I want to see and then transfer to the canvas. I am inspired by nature because it contains a hidden secret of existence. For me, painting it is a reflection on life and passing away. It is an attempt to capture the imperceptible essence, to paint what cannot be seen. I think that my paintings can be a respite, an antidote for a man tired of technology, constant rush, hustle and bustle of the city. Grzegorz Wójcik...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Cotton Canvas, Acrylic, Oil

Nocturnal Nature: Painted Cyanotype Still Life of Hibiscus and Rose on Indigo
Located in Hudson, NY
Hand-painted cyanotype still life of pink flowers on indigo with custom frame Nocturnal Nature (Double Hibiscus, Rose) — painted cyanotype by Julia Whitney Barnes 2024 watercolor, go...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

India Ink, Watercolor, Gouache, Archival Paper

There There
Located in New York, NY
Sila Sehrazat Yucel is a talented artist based in Istanbul. Her background in landscape and interior architecture shapes her creative vision. With experience as an art director in ci...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Pigment

Self Esteem -21st Century, Contemporary, Figurative, African Fabric, Floral
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
“If you have no confidence in yourself, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.” Hebrews 10:35–36 “So do not throw aw...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Pumpkin (Yellow and Black)
Located in Bristol, GB
Cast resin Open edition Stamped on base (not signed or numbered) New. Sold in the original box Benesse Museum, Japan
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Resin

North Shore Motel Steps, Salton Sea, California - Architectural color photo
Located in Cambridge, GB
North Shore Motel Steps, mid-century architecture photography captured by Richard Heeps as part of his Salton Sea series. This artwork is a limited edition of 25 gloss photographic ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Silver Gelatin

Tony Ward Figure series #1, 21st Century, Contemporary, Celebrity, Photography
Located in München, BY
Edition 10 Also available in 40 x 50 cm / 16 x 20 inch, Edition 25 Black and white portrait of nude model Tony Ward. From personality portraits and advert...
Category

1980s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Pigment

Sitting Figure by Lynn Chadwick
Located in Dubai, Dubai
Sitting Figure By Lynn Chadwick 1982 Stamped with monogram and numbered 804S 8/9 (underneath) part-polished bronze with a black patina 19.5cm high Lynn Chadwick was a British s...
Category

1980s Contemporary Art

Materials

Bronze

"Euphoria" Nude Photography 24 x 16 inch Edition of 28 by Yevgeniy Repiashenko
Located in Culver City, CA
"Euphoria" Nude Photography 24 x 16 inch Edition of 28 by Yevgeniy Repiashenko "Euphoria" by Yevgeniy Repiashenko Year photo was taken: 2013 Art Print Limited Edition of 28 Picture...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Pigment, Plexiglass

White Cliffs Panorama - Large Color Seascape Photography - Limited Edition
Located in Vienna, Vienna
Color fine art seascape - landscape long exposure photography. Archival pigment ink print as part of a limited edition of 7. All Gerald Berghammer prints are made to order in limited...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Digital Pigment

Come on - Contemporary, Nude, Women, Polaroid, 21st Century, Color
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
'Come on' part of the series 'A girl called N.' - 2019, 20x20cm, Edition 4/7. Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid, not mounted. Signature label and certificate. Artist invent...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Love - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid, Figurative, Photograph, Nude
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Love (The Princess and her Lover) part of the 29 Palms, CA project - 2007, Edition of 1/10, 20x24cm. Digital C-Print based on the Polaroid. Not mounted. Signature label and Cer...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Beach Huts, silent Morning, minimalist black and white photography, landscape
Located in Vienna, Vienna
Gerald Berghammer - Black and white minimalist photography. Two small white beach huts and a bench on a pebbled beach, with a clear sky in the background. Archival pigment ink print...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Digital Pigment

Dark Hedges - Ireland - Tree Avenue - Monochrome - Limited Edition Photography
Located in Vienna, Vienna
Gerald Berghammer - Black and white mystic landscape photography. Road through a tunnel of twisted, gnarled trees on both sides with branches overhead. Archival pigment ink print, e...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Digital Pigment

Blushing Pears, Oil Painting
Located in San Francisco, CA

Artist Comments
Two pears rest on a wooden surface. The light accentuates their blemished yellow skin with reddish blush, along with their curvy form. A curling leaf adorns one...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil

Silkscreen - Contemporary, Nude, Women, Polaroid, 21st Century
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Silkscreen - 2021 20x20cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid, Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2021-1070. Not m...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Row of Cypress Trees, Tuscany, color photography, limited edition, landscape
Located in Vienna, Vienna
Gerald Berghammer - Color landscape photography. A rural landscape with a curved dirt road and a line of tall cypress trees on a hill against a pale sky. Archival pigment ink print ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Digital Pigment

Chance and Destiny, Contemporary Abstract Painting
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This painting uses an interplay of dark green, black, and negative space, forming abstract, gestural shapes that evoke a sense of rhythm and movement. The composition balances dense,...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Gesso, Canvas, Acrylic, Vinyl

Tableau, Japanese, limited edition lithograph, black, white, red, signed, number
Located in Santa Fe, NM
Tableau, Japanese, limited edition lithograph, black, white, red, signed, number Shinoda's works have been collected by public galleries and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum and Metropolitan Museum (all in New York City), the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the British Museum in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the Singapore Art Museum, the National Museum of Singapore, the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands, the Albright–Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. New York Times Obituary, March 3, 2021 by Margalit Fox, Alex Traub contributed reporting. Toko Shinoda, one of the foremost Japanese artists of the 20th century, whose work married the ancient serenity of calligraphy with the modernist urgency of Abstract Expressionism, died on Monday at a hospital in Tokyo. She was 107. Her death was announced by her gallerist in the United States. A painter and printmaker, Ms. Shinoda attained international renown at midcentury and remained sought after by major museums and galleries worldwide for more than five decades. Her work has been exhibited at, among other places, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the British Museum; and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. Private collectors include the Japanese imperial family. Writing about a 1998 exhibition of Ms. Shinoda’s work at a London gallery, the British newspaper The Independent called it “elegant, minimal and very, very composed,” adding, “Her roots as a calligrapher are clear, as are her connections with American art of the 1950s, but she is quite obviously a major artist in her own right.” As a painter, Ms. Shinoda worked primarily in sumi ink, a solid form of ink, made from soot pressed into sticks, that has been used in Asia for centuries. Rubbed on a wet stone to release their pigment, the sticks yield a subtle ink that, because it is quickly imbibed by paper, is strikingly ephemeral. The sumi artist must make each brush stroke with all due deliberation, as the nature of the medium precludes the possibility of reworking even a single line. “The color of the ink which is produced by this method is a very delicate one,” Ms. Shinoda told The Business Times of Singapore in 2014. “It is thus necessary to finish one’s work very quickly. So the composition must be determined in my mind before I pick up the brush. Then, as they say, the painting just falls off the brush.” Ms. Shinoda painted almost entirely in gradations of black, with occasional sepias and filmy blues. The ink sticks she used had been made for the great sumi artists of the past, some as long as 500 years ago. Her line — fluid, elegant, impeccably placed — owed much to calligraphy. She had been rigorously trained in that discipline from the time she was a child, but she had begun to push against its confines when she was still very young. Deeply influenced by American Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell, whose work she encountered when she lived in New York in the late 1950s, Ms. Shinoda shunned representation. “If I have a definite idea, why paint it?,” she asked in an interview with United Press International in 1980. “It’s already understood and accepted. A stand of bamboo is more beautiful than a painting could be. Mount Fuji is more striking than any possible imitation.” Spare and quietly powerful, making abundant use of white space, Ms. Shinoda’s paintings are done on traditional Chinese and Japanese papers, or on backgrounds of gold, silver or platinum leaf. Often asymmetrical, they can overlay a stark geometric shape with the barest calligraphic strokes. The combined effect appears to catch and hold something evanescent — “as elusive as the memory of a pleasant scent or the movement of wind,” as she said in a 1996 interview. Ms. Shinoda’s work also included lithographs; three-dimensional pieces of wood and other materials; and murals in public spaces, including a series made for the Zojoji Temple in Tokyo. The fifth of seven children of a prosperous family, Ms. Shinoda was born on March 28, 1913, in Dalian, in Manchuria, where her father, Raijiro, managed a tobacco plant. Her mother, Joko, was a homemaker. The family returned to Japan when she was a baby, settling in Gifu, midway between Kyoto and Tokyo. One of her father’s uncles, a sculptor and calligrapher, had been an official seal carver to the Meiji emperor. He conveyed his love of art and poetry to Toko’s father, who in turn passed it to Toko. “My upbringing was a very traditional one, with relatives living with my parents,” she said in the U.P.I. interview. “In a scholarly atmosphere, I grew up knowing I wanted to make these things, to be an artist.” She began studying calligraphy at 6, learning, hour by hour, impeccable mastery over line. But by the time she was a teenager, she had begun to seek an artistic outlet that she felt calligraphy, with its centuries-old conventions, could not afford. “I got tired of it and decided to try my own style,” Ms. Shinoda told Time magazine in 1983. “My father always scolded me for being naughty and departing from the traditional way, but I had to do it.” Moving to Tokyo as a young adult, Ms. Shinoda became celebrated throughout Japan as one of the country’s finest living calligraphers, at the time a signal honor for a woman. She had her first solo show in 1940, at a Tokyo gallery. During World War II, when she forsook the city for the countryside near Mount Fuji, she earned her living as a calligrapher, but by the mid-1940s she had started experimenting with abstraction. In 1954 she began to achieve renown outside Japan with her inclusion in an exhibition of Japanese calligraphy at MoMA. In 1956, she traveled to New York. At the time, unmarried Japanese women could obtain only three-month visas for travel abroad, but through zealous renewals, Ms. Shinoda managed to remain for two years. She met many of the titans of Abstract Expressionism there, and she became captivated by their work. “When I was in New York in the ’50s, I was often included in activities with those artists, people like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Motherwell and so forth,” she said in a 1998 interview with The Business Times. “They were very generous people, and I was often invited to visit their studios, where we would share ideas and opinions on our work. It was a great experience being together with people who shared common feelings.” During this period, Ms. Shinoda’s work was sold in the United States by Betty Parsons, the New York dealer who represented Pollock, Rothko and many of their contemporaries. Returning to Japan, Ms. Shinoda began to fuse calligraphy and the Expressionist aesthetic in earnest. The result was, in the words of The Plain Dealer of Cleveland in 1997, “an art of elegant simplicity and high drama.” Among Ms. Shinoda’s many honors, she was depicted, in 2016, on a Japanese postage stamp. She is the only Japanese artist to be so honored during her lifetime. No immediate family members survive. When she was quite young and determined to pursue a life making art, Ms. Shinoda made the decision to forgo the path that seemed foreordained for women of her generation. “I never married and have no children,” she told The Japan Times in 2017. “And I suppose that it sounds strange to think that my paintings are in place of them — of course they are not the same thing at all. But I do say, when paintings that I have made years ago are brought back into my consciousness, it seems like an old friend, or even a part of me, has come back to see me.” Works of a Woman's Hand Toko Shinoda bases new abstractions on ancient calligraphy Down a winding side street in the Aoyama district, western Tokyo. into a chunky white apartment building, then up in an elevator small enough to make a handful of Western passengers friends or enemies for life. At the end of a hall on the fourth floor, to the right, stands a plain brown door. To be admitted is to go through the looking glass. Sayonara today. Hello (Konichiwa) yesterday and tomorrow. Toko Shinoda, 70, lives and works here. She can be, when she chooses, on e of Japans foremost calligraphers, master of an intricate manner of writing that traces its lines back some 3,000 years to ancient China. She is also an avant-garde artist of international renown, whose abstract paintings and lithographs rest in museums around the world. These diverse talents do not seem to belong in the same epoch. Yet they have somehow converged in this diminutive woman who appears in her tiny foyer, offering slippers and ritual bows of greeting. She looks like someone too proper to chip a teacup, never mind revolutionize an old and hallowed art form She wears a blue and white kimono of her own design. Its patterns, she explains, are from Edo, meaning the period of the Tokugawa shoguns, before her city was renamed Tokyo in 1868. Her black hair is pulled back from her face, which is virtually free of lines and wrinkles. except for the gold-rimmed spectacles perched low on her nose (this visionary is apparently nearsighted). Shinoda could have stepped directly from a 19th century Meji print. Her surroundings convey a similar sense of old aesthetics, a retreat in the midst of a modern, frenetic city. The noise of the heavy traffic on a nearby elevated highway sounds at this height like distant surf. delicate bamboo shades filter the daylight. The color arrangement is restful: low ceilings of exposed wood, off-white walls, pastel rugs of blue, green and gray. It all feels so quintessentially Japanese that Shinoda’s opening remarks come as a surprise. She points out (through a translator) that she was not born in Japan at all but in Darien, Manchuria. Her father had been posted there to manage a tobacco company under the aegis of the occupying Japanese forces, which seized the region from Russia in 1905. She says,”People born in foreign places are very free in their thinking, not restricted” But since her family went back to Japan in 1915, when she was two, she could hardly remember much about a liberated childhood? She answers,”I think that if my mother had remained in Japan, she would have been an ordinary Japanese housewife. Going to Manchuria, she was able to assert her own personality, and that left its mark on me.” Evidently so. She wears her obi low on the hips, masculine style. The Porcelain aloofness she displays in photographs shatters in person. Her speech is forceful, her expression animated and her laugh both throaty and infectious. The hand she brings to her mouth to cover her amusement (a traditional female gesture of modesty) does not stand a chance. Her father also made a strong impression on the fifth of his seven children:”He came from a very old family, and he was quite strict in some ways and quite liberal in others.” He owned one of the first three bicycles ever imported to Japan and tinkered with it constantly He also decided that his little daughter would undergo rigorous training in a procrustean antiquity. “I was forced to study from age six on to learn calligraphy,” Shinoda says, The young girl dutifully memorized and copied the accepted models. In one sense, her father had pushed her in a promising direction, one of the few professional fields in Japan open to females. Included among the ancient terms that had evolved around calligraphy was onnade, or woman's writing. Heresy lay ahead. By the time she was 15, she had already been through nine years of intensive discipline, “I got tired of it and decided to try my own style. My father always scolded me for being naughty and departing from the traditional way, but I had to do it.” She produces a brush and a piece of paper to demonstrate the nature of her rebellion. “This is kawa, the accepted calligraphic character for river,” she says, deftly sketching three short vertical strokes. “But I wanted to use more than three lines to show the force of the river.” Her brush flows across the white page, leaving a recognizable river behind, also flowing.” The simple kawa in the traditional language was not enough for me. I wanted to find a new symbol to express the word river.” Her conviction grew that ink could convey the ineffable, the feeling, "as she says, of wind blowing softly.” Another demonstration. She goes to the sliding wooden door of an anteroom and disappears in back of it; the only trace of her is a triangular swatch of the right sleeve of her kimono, which she has arranged for that purpose. A realization dawns. The task of this artist is to paint that three sided pattern so that the invisible woman attached to it will be manifest to all viewers. Gen, painted especially for TIME, shows Shinoda’s theory in practice. She calls the work “my conception of Japan in visual terms.” A dark swath at the left, punctuated by red, stands for history. In the center sits a Chinese character gen, which means in the present or actuality. A blank pattern at the right suggests an unknown future. Once out of school, Shinoda struck off on a path significantly at odds with her culture. She recognized marriage for what it could mean to her career (“a restriction”) and decided against it. There was a living to be earned by doing traditional calligraphy:she used her free time to paint her variations. In 1940 a Tokyo gallery exhibited her work. (Fourteen years would pass before she got a second show.)War came, and bad times for nearly everyone, including the aspiring artist , who retreated to a rural area near Mount Fuji and traded her kimonos for eggs. In 1954 Shinoda’s work was included in a group exhibit at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. Two years later, she overcame bureaucratic obstacles to visit the U.S.. Unmarried Japanese women are allowed visas for only three months, patiently applying for two-month extensions, one at a time, Shinoda managed to travel the country for two years. She pulls out a scrapbook from this period. Leafing through it, she suddenly raises a hand and touches her cheek:”How young I looked!” An inspection is called for. The woman in the grainy, yellowing newspaper photograph could easily be the on e sitting in this room. Told this, she nods and smiles. No translation necessary. Her sojourn in the U.S. proved to be crucial in the recognition and development of Shinoda’s art. Celebrities such as actor Charles Laughton and John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet bought her paintings and spread the good word. She also saw the works of the abstract expressionists, then the rage of the New York City art world, and realized that these Western artists, coming out of an utterly different tradition, were struggling toward the same goal that had obsessed her. Once she was back home, her work slowly made her famous. Although Shinoda has used many materials (fabric, stainless steel, ceramics, cement), brush and ink remain her principal means of expression. She had said, “As long as I am devoted to the creation of new forms, I can draw even with muddy water.” Fortunately, she does not have to. She points with evident pride to her ink stone, a velvety black slab of rock, with an indented basin, that is roughly a foot across and two feet long. It is more than 300 years old. Every working morning, Shinoda pours about a third of a pint of water into it, then selects an ink stick from her extensive collection, some dating back to China’s Ming dynasty. Pressing stick against stone, she begins rubbing. Slowly, the dried ink dissolves in the water and becomes ready for the brush. So two batches of sumi (India ink) are exactly alike; something old, something new. She uses color sparingly. Her clear preference is black and all its gradations. “In some paintings, sumi expresses blue better than blue.” It is time to go downstairs to the living quarters. A niece, divorced and her daughter,10,stay here with Shinoda; the artist who felt forced to renounce family and domesticity at the outset of her career seems welcome to it now. Sake is offered, poured into small cedar boxes and happily accepted. Hold carefully. Drink from a corner. Ambrosial. And just right for the surroundings and the hostess. A conservative renegade; a liberal traditionalist; a woman steeped in the male-dominated conventions that she consistently opposed. Her trail blazing accomplishments are analogous to Picasso’s. When she says goodbye, she bows. --by Paul Gray...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Lithograph

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Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

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Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

American West by Anouk Krantz 2021
Located in Chicago, IL
American West (B&W) 2021 ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINT Unframed Sizes: 40 x 60 in (101.6 x 152.4 cm) - Edition of 10 + 2 AP (Artist Proofs) SILVER GELATIN PRINT Unframed Size: 11.3 x 17 i...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Pigment, Silver Gelatin

Cowboy TV - large format photograph of iconic western in American landscape
Located in San Francisco, CA
large scale original photograph of vintage TV set with iconic western movie in American wild west landscape Cowboy TV by Frank Schott 30 x 40...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment, Archival Paper, Giclée, Archival Ink

Contemporary art for sale on 1stDibs.

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