Peter Alexander On Sale

A bit of surfboard wax, a small Dixie cup and the sun sparked an epiphany for artist Peter Alexander and began his rise through the Light and Space movement of the 1960s. After seeing wax dry into a translucent block, Alexander chose resin as his signature medium and created sculptures that appear to be constructed out of light itself.

Alexander was born in 1939 in Los Angeles. By 1966, he had studied under Estonian-born American architect Louis Kahn at the University of Pennsylvania and transferred to several universities before graduating with a bachelor’s and master's degree in fine art from UCLA. He explored the possibilities of resin throughout the 1960s. Many of his resin sculptures are monolithic and contemplative, with a mysterious air, as seen in his Cloud Boxes, which seem to trap miniature clouds within blocks. 

Like his Light and Space contemporaries James Turrell, Larry Bell, Mary Corse and DeWain Valentine, Alexander wished to capture light in the form of an artistic environment. After exhibiting at Nicholas Wilder Gallery in Los Angeles and the Robert Elkon Gallery in New York, Alexander turned to painting, drawing, lithography and polaroid photography as new ways to explore the effects of light. In his sculptures, the color changed in tone and intensity based on the light source and the position of the viewer. In his later work, Alexander’s curiosity about color informed much of his art, which combined light and hues to elicit various emotions.

He died in 2020 at the age of 81. Alexander’s art has appeared in films including Erin Brockovich, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Shopgirl. The Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the San Diego Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Centre Pompidou in Paris have all exhibited his work. 

On 1stDibs, find a collection of Peter Alexander’s prints and multiples.

Explore a vast range of abstract prints on 1stDibs to find a piece to enhance your existing collection or transform a space.

Unlike figurative paintings and other figurative art, which focuses on realism and representational perspectives, abstract art concentrates on visual interpretation. An artist may use a single color or simple geometric forms to create a world of depth. Printmaking has a rich history of abstraction. Through materials like stone, metal, wood and wax, an image can be transferred from one surface to another.

During the 19th century, iconic artists, including Edvard Munch, Paul Cézanne, Georgiana Houghton and others, began exploring works based on shapes and colors. This was a departure from the academic conventions of European painting and would influence the rise of 20th-century abstraction and its pioneers, like Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian.

Some leaders of European abstraction, including Franz Kline, were influenced by the gestural shapes of East Asian calligraphy. Calligraphy interprets poetry, songs, symbols or other means of storytelling into art, from works on paper in Japan to elements of Islamic architecture.

Bold, daring and expressive, abstract art is constantly evolving and dazzling viewers. And entire genres have blossomed from it, such as Color Field painting and Minimalism.

The collection of abstract art prints on 1stDibs includes etchings, lithographs, screen-prints and other works, and you can find prints by artists such as Joan Miró, Alexander Calder and more.