1968
The Lithuanian-American artist Irving Norman was a social Surrealist who painted large-scale and highly detailed critiques of contemporary life with hopes that viewers would consider the consequences of their actions and change their behavior.
Influenced by the dire conditions of the Great Depression, Norman’s massive canvases feature armies of clone-like figures behaving in the clockwork manner in which they have been programmed. He moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1934 before helping to defend the Spanish Republic from the fascist Franco dictatorship.
Norman survived the Spanish Civil War and in 1939 settled on Catalina Island off the Southern California coast, where he began drawing and painting from the atrocities he had witnessed. In 1940, he moved to San Francisco and had a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art two years later. Norman then traveled to Mexico City and saw the murals of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros before moving to New York City to study at the Art Students League from 1946 to 1947. He returned to San Francisco in the late 1940s. In 1988, fire destroyed Norman’s home, studio, artwork and personal papers.
Find original Irving Norman paintings and prints on 1stDibs.
(Biography provided by Heather James Fine Art)
How Come
By Irving Norman
Located in Palm Desert, CA
"How Come" is a Modern surrealist oil on canvas painting by Irving Norman in 1968. The artwork is 90 x 60 inches and 91 1/4 x 61 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches with the fram, weighing less than ...
Oil
Man and Time
By Irving Norman
Located in Palm Desert, CA
"Man and Time" is an American surrealist oil on canvas painting by Irving Norman in 1986. The artwork is 58 x 30 inches and 59 1/8 x 31 1/8 x 1 1/2 inches with the frame, weighing le...
Oil
Bacchanal
By Irving Norman
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A painting by Irving Norman. "Bacchanal" is a macabre social surrealism painting, oil on canvas in a dark palette of reds, blues, and blacks by artist Irving Norman. The artwork is u...
Canvas, Oil
Shooting Gallery
By Eric Jon Holswade
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A painting by Eric Jon Holswade "Shooting Gallery" is an acrylic on panel painting executed primarily in a palette of reds, yellows, blues and black a...
Acrylic, Panel
Untitled
By Francisco Toledo
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A mixed media on paper work by Latin American artist Francisco Toledo. Executed mainly in white and ochre, with red and blue, the work depicts two abstracted faces. Signed lower midd...
Canvas, Mixed Media
American Street Scene
By Irving Norman
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A painting by Irving Norman. "American Street Scene" is a macabre social surrealism city scape, oil on canvas in a bold palette of reds, blues, and yellows by artist Irving Norman. T...
Canvas, Oil
Time
By Vera Barnett
Located in Dallas, TX
Inspired by the quote "Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations." - Faith Baldwin In her recent series, "The Painted Word," Vera Barnett has turned to the written word for...
Linen, Oil
(Untitled)
By George Hughes
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Board Dimensions: 18.00" x 23.75 Signature: Signed Lower Right
Oil, Board
Untitled
By Roberto Fabelo
Located in Miami, FL
Beautiful watercolor painting by the artist Roberto Fabelo. Roberto Fabelo (born 1951 Camagüey, Cuba) is a contemporary painter, sculptor, and illustrator. Born in Guáimaro, Camagüey, Fabelo studied at The National Art School and at the Superior Art Institute of Havana. He was a professor and a jury member for very important national and international visual arts contests. The Cuban state awarded him a medal for National Culture and the Alejo Carpentier medal for his outstanding artistic career. Fabelo’s art consists of nude women, who often appear with bird-like features, including a beak and wings. He drew in textbooks and created figures out of the pictures already in the textbook. Another example of his art was watercolor markers used to draw on silk embroidered fabric. His work is exhibited at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, and in the Cuban embassy in Mexico. His 2009 sculpture of a group of human-headed cockroaches can be found climbing one of the walls of the Havana Fine Arts Museum, entitled Survival. He also illustrated a 2007 edition of Gabriel García Márquez’s novel Cien años de...
Watercolor, Laid Paper
Remembrance of Things Past
By Kenneth B Walsh
Located in East Hampton, NY
Remembrance of Things Past NOT framed Neo Cubism About the Artist: Kenneth B Walsh (1922-1980) In the 1950s, Kenneth Bonar Walsh came to Montauk from New York City to paint seascapes, catch fish, sing of Nature's beauty, put down roots, and, later, develop a style of painting all his own. The Boston native moved to New York after attending the School of Practical Art on the G.I. Bill, where he began his career in the art department of Lever Brothers. But he had bigger dreams, and soon established the Bonart Studio, a commercial art business. RCA Records, the Ideal and Transogram toy companies, and the Schrafft’s candy and chocolate company were among the studio’s clients. The business a success, he began to take vacations. He liked Montauk so much that he built a house in Hither Hills...
Canvas, Acrylic
The Myth
By Paul McDowall
Located in London, GB
Paul McDowall The Myth, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 101.6 x 76 cm 40 x 30 inches Born in Liverpool and based in New York for over three decades, Paul brings a designer’s precision and a ...
Canvas, Acrylic
Anniversary
By Theodore Waddell
Located in Bozeman, MT
Waddell's paintings are a combination of rough marks, thick paint, transparent elegant strokes, and, on a few occasions a slow, hard line scratched into the canvas. You can feel the ...
Canvas, Encaustic, Oil
This piece may look like Pop art fun, but embedded within is a message of a planet on the brink.
More than three decades after his death, the prolific Pop artist and cultural icon's body of work continues to captivate. Here's a primer of some of his most notable motifs and mediums.
