1954
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
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
Striptease
By Irving Norman
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A drawing by Irving Norman. "Striptease" is a macabre cultural commentary drawing, pencil and color pencil on paper executed in a dark palette of blacks, grays, and reds by social su...
Pencil, Color Pencil
Snapshots
By Irving Norman
Located in Palm Desert, CA
"Snapshots" is a modern surrealist oil on canvas painting by Irving Norman in 1986. The artwork is 40 x 90 inches and 41 3/8 x 91 1/4 x 1 5/8 inches with the frame, weighing less than 50 lbs. It is signed and dated lower right, "I.N. '68". Norman's surrealist paintings transport viewers into dystopian realms where human figures meld with machinery, creating haunting landscapes of industrialized chaos and existential reflection. This painting uses a series of vignettes or "snapshots" of human couples in various states of health and vigor. The grotesque nature of some of the bodies is juxtaposed in the bright swimsuits as children play under an ominous sky...
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
Accolade
By Arne Hiersoux
Located in Palm Desert, CA
An abstract acrylic and paper on canvas painting by Post War artist Arne Hiersoux. "Accolade" is executed in bold strokes, splashes and drips of yellow, red, black and blue against a...
Canvas, Paper, Acrylic
Scène fantastique
By Nebojsa BEZANIC
Located in Atlanta, GA
Born in 1964, Nebojsa Bezanic was predominantly influenced by the 1980s. The generation of artists that grew up in, and took inspiration from, the nineteen eighties was influenced by a period of quickly growing global capitalism, political upheaval, significant wealth discrepancy, global mass media and distinctive music and fashion, including electronic pop music and hip hop. The 1980s was the era of African famine, the height of the Cold War, and also the end of it, as marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall. significant art movements of the era include Neo Geo, The Pictures Generation and the global trend of Neo-Expressionism which manifested in Germany, the USA and Italy (where it was known as Transavanguardia). The decade was exemplified by artists like Anselm Kiefer, Jörg Immendorf...
Ink, Watercolor
Multi-Figural Study (Bacchanal)
By James Childs
Located in New York, NY
This James Childs artwork is offered by CLAMP in New York City.
Paper, Charcoal, Pastel, Graphite
The Sacrifice
Located in San Francisco, CA
Given the subject of this painting, you won't be surprised to learn that actor and artist Vincent Price was a patron of Noel Rockmore (1928-1995), this work's American artist. Additi...
Canvas, Oil
'Bacchanal', Mid-century Pompeii, Roman Mythology, Bacchus, Neo-classical
By Giovanni Gallo
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower right, 'Gallo Giovanni' for Giovanni Gallo (Italian, 20th century) and dated 1954. Titled lower left, 'Eseguito a Pompei, 'Trionfo di Bacco'' (Done in Pompeii, 'Triumph...
Paper, Gouache
Le Banquet
By Dominic Lessard
Located in Santa Monica, CA
Oil on canvas
Canvas, Oil
Segreto
By Robert Carroll
Located in Atlanta, GA
Robert Carroll was born in 1934 and was predominantly inspired by the 1950s growing up. Abstract Expressionism prevailed in the 1950s as a primary method of painting, and explored id...
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.
