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Realist Prints and Multiples

REALIST STYLE

Realist art attempts to portray its subject matter without artifice. Similar to naturalism, authentic realist paintings and prints see an integration of true-to-life colors, meticulous detail and linear perspectives for accurate portrayals of the world. 

Work that involves illusionistic techniques of realism dates back to the classical world, such as the deceptive trompe l’oeil used since ancient Greece. Art like this became especially popular in the 17th century when Dutch artists like Evert Collier painted objects that appeared real enough to touch. Realism as an artistic movement, however, usually refers to 19th-century French realist artists such as Honoré Daumier exploring social and political issues in biting lithographic prints, while the likes of Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet painting people — particularly the working class — with all their imperfections, navigating everyday urban life. This was a response to the dominant academic art tradition that favored grand paintings of myth and history. 

By the turn of the 20th century, European artists, such as the Pre-Raphaelites, were experimenting with nearly photographic realism in their work, as seen in the attention to every botanical attribute of the flowers surrounding the drowned Ophelia painted by English artist John Everett Millais.

Although abstraction was the guiding style of 20th-century art, the realism trend in American modern art endured in Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth and other artists’ depictions of the complexities of the human experience. In the late 1960s, Photorealism emerged with artists like Chuck Close and Richard Estes giving their paintings the precision of a frame of film.

Contemporary artists such as Jordan Casteel, LaToya Ruby Frazier and Aliza Nisenbaum are now using the unvarnished realist approach for honest representations of people and their worlds. Alongside traditional mediums, technology such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and immersive installations are helping artists create new sensations of realism in art.

​​Find authentic realist paintings, sculptures, prints and more art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Realist
Period: Early 1900s
"Sur la Tamise" original etching Thames River
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching. A rather atmospheric view of London's Thames River and a good impression on thin laid paper, published in Paris in 1909 for the Revue de l'art ancien et mod...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching

"La charrue" original etching
By Pieter Dupont
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching. This impression on japon paper was printed in 1902 and published in Paris by the by Gazette des Beaux Arts. Image size: 5 x 8 1/2 inches (127 x 213 mm). Not...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching

"Gardiens du Logis" original etching and aquatint
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching and aquatint with drypoint. Also known as "Les amis du Saltimbanque". Catalogue reference Bourcard/Goodfriend 76. Published in 1902 by Revue de l'art ancien ...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Aquatint, Etching

"Sous l'averse" original etching and aquatint
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching and aquatint with drypoint. Catalogue reference Bourcard/Goodfriend 154. This work is also known as "Le petit enterrement". Printed in 1902 on laid paper and...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching, Aquatint

"Vue de Rouen" original etching
By Clarence Alphonse Gagnon
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching. Printed in 1905 and published in Paris by Gazette des Beaux Arts. Plate size: 6 5/8 x 4 inches (170 x 100 mm). Sheet size: 10 1/2 x 7 inches (270 x 178 mm)....
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching

"Pinienhain" original etching
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching. Printed in 1900 and published in Leipzig, Germany for Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst. This impression is printed on cream wove paper, and the image size is ...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching

original etching
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching. Printed in 1900 and published in Leipzig, Germany for Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst. This impression is printed on cream wove paper, and the plate size is ...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

Materials

Etching

original etching
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching. Printed in 1900 and published in Leipzig, Germany for Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst. This impression is printed on cream wove paper, and the plate size is ...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching

"Alte Frau" original etching
By Georg Jahn
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching. Printed in 1900 and published in Leipzig, Germany for Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst. This impression is printed on cream wove paper, and the plate size is ...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching

"Munster auf der Reichenau" original etching
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching. Printed in 1900 and published in Leipzig, Germany for Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst. This impression is printed on cream wove paper. Plate size: 7 1/2 x 11...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching

"Les deux miroirs" original etching
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching. Printed in 1906 at the Alfred Porcabeuf atelier and published in Paris by Gazette des Beaux-Arts. Image size: 6 1/2 x 5 7/8 inches (165 x 149 mm). Signed in...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching

"Le buisson" etching
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: etching. Etched by Jacques Beurdeley after Jacob van Ruisdael. Catalogue reference: Sanchez & Seydoux 1906-2. Printed in Paris and published in 19...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching

"Les Bucoliques X, " Original Lithograph, Signed
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Les Bucoliques X" is an original black and white lithograph signed in stone by the artist Henri Fantin-Latour. It depicts two figures spending free time in bucolic nature. This prin...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Black and White, Lithograph

Evening - The depth of the visible -
Located in Berlin, DE
Max Clarenbach (1880 Neuss - Cologne 1952), Evening. Etching, 18 x 41 cm (platemark), 33.5 x 57 cm (frame), inscribed "Abend" in pencil at lower left, signed and dated "M. Clarenbach. 28.III.[19]09". Framed and mounted under glass. - Somewhat browned and slightly foxed. About the artwork The horizontally elongated etching depicts the panoramic view of a small town as seen from the other side of the river. There are gabled houses on the left and a mighty church spire on the right. The bourgeois houses and the large religious building indicate the urban character. These buildings are rendered in dark tones to emphasise the lighter row of houses in the centre of the picture, closer to the water. The chiaroscuro contrast creates two parallel planes that open up a space for the imagination of what the city could be. The imagination is stimulated by the almost entirely dark, barely recognisable buildings, while the arm of the river leading into the city further stimulates the imagination. However, as the silhouette of the city as a whole is reflected in the water, the parallel planes are perceived as a band of houses that stretches across the entire horizontality of the etching and seems to continue beyond the borders of the picture. The reflection has almost the same intensity as the houses themselves, so that the band of buildings merges with their reflection to form the dominant formal unit of the picture. Only the parallel horizontal hatching creates the convincing impression of seeing water, demonstrating Max Clarenbach's mastery of the etching needle. The water is completely motionless, the reflection unclouded by the slightest movement of the waves, creating a symmetry within the formal unity of the cityscape and its reflection that goes beyond the motif of a mere cityscape. A pictorial order is established that integrates everything in the picture and has a metaphysical character as a structure of order that transcends the individual things. This pictorial order is not only relevant in the pictorial world, but the picture itself reveals the order of the reality it depicts. Revealing the metaphysical order of reality in the structures of its visibility is what drives Clarenbach as an artist and motivates him to return to the same circle of motifs. The symmetry described is at the same time inherent an asymmetry that is a reflection on art: While the real cityscape is cut off at the top of the picture, two chimneys and above all the church tower are not visible, the reflection illustrates reality in its entirety. The reflection occupies a much larger space in the picture than reality itself. Since antiquity, art has been understood primarily as a reflection of reality, but here Clarenbach makes it clear that art is not a mere appearance, which can at best be a reflection of reality, but that art has the potential to reveal reality itself. The revealed structure of order is by no means purely formalistic; it appears at the same time as the mood of the landscape. The picture is filled with an almost sacred silence. Nothing in the picture evokes a sound, and there is complete stillness. There are no people in Clarenbach's landscape paintings to bring action into the picture. Not even we ourselves are assigned a viewing position in the picture, so that we do not become thematic subjects of action. Clarenbach also refrains from depicting technical achievements. The absence of man and technology creates an atmosphere of timelessness. Even if the specific date proves that Clarenbach is depicting something that happened before his eyes, without the date we would not be able to say which decade, or even which century, we are in. The motionless stillness, then, does not result in time being frozen in the picture, but rather in a timeless eternity that is nevertheless, as the title "Abend" (evening), added by Clarenbach himself, makes clear, a phenomenon of transition. The landscape of the stalls is about to be completely plunged into darkness, the buildings behind it only faintly discernible. The slightly darkened state of the sheet is in keeping with this transitional quality, which also lends the scene a sepia quality that underlines its timelessness. And yet the depiction is tied to a very specific time. Clarenbach dates the picture to the evening of 28 March 1909, which does not refer to the making of the etching, but to the capture of the landscape's essence in the landscape itself. If the real landscape is thus in a state of transition, and therefore something ephemeral, art reveals its true nature in that reality, subject to the flow of phenomena, is transferred to an eternal moment, subject to a supra-temporal structure of order - revealed by art. Despite this supratemporality, the picture also shows the harbingers of night as the coming darkening of the world, which gives the picture a deeply melancholy quality, enhanced by the browning of the leaf. It is the philosophical content and the lyrical-melancholic effect of the graphic that give it its enchanting power. Once we are immersed in the image, it literally takes a jerk to disengage from it. This etching, so characteristic of Max Clarenbach's art, is - not least because of its dimensions - a major work in his graphic oeuvre. About the artist Born into poverty and orphaned at an early age, the artistically gifted young Max Clarenbach was discovered by Andreas Achenbach and admitted to the Düsseldorf Art Academy at the age of 13. "Completely penniless, I worked for an uncle in a cardboard factory in the evenings to pay for my studies.” - Max Clarenbach At the academy he studied under Arthur Kampf, among others, and in 1897 was accepted into Eugen Dücker...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

Materials

Etching

"Au cap d'Antibes" original etching
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching. Printed in 1902 and published in Paris by Gazette des Beaux Arts. Image size: 5 3/4 x 8 1/4 inches (145 x 210 mm). Signed in the plate, not hand-signed.
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching

"Depart pour la promenade" original etching
By Raoul du Gardier
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching and aquatint in bistre. This impression on watermarked laid paper was printed in 1905 and published in Paris for the Revue de l'art ancien et moderne. Plate ...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching

Early 20th Century Dutch Girls Chromolithograph
Located in Soquel, CA
Charming early 20th century chromolithograph of young Dutch girls with their older instructor titled, "Dutch Girls" by Bernhardt T. Wall (American, 1889-195...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Paper, Ink

Bodleian, Oxford University, William Nicholson lithograph 1905 College Stafford
Located in London, GB
To see our other views of Oxford and Cambridge, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller" - or send us a message if you cannot find the view you want. William Nicholson (1872-1949) Bodleian Library, University of Oxford Signed and numbered 110, published by Stafford Gallery with blind stamp Lithograph 28 x 34.5cm Probably best known through his graphic works, as a book designer and illustrator, Nicholson was greatly encouraged in his landscapes by Whistler from about 1900. In 1902-03 he produced a series of watercolour, chalk and pen drawings of Oxford which were published in 1905 by the Stafford Gallery as two portfolios of lithographs, with descriptions by Arthur Waugh – father of Evelyn Waugh...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Lithograph

Wadham College, Oxford lithograph by William Nicholson
Located in London, GB
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Lithograph

Young Girl with the Cats - Original handsigned etching - 30 copies
Located in Paris, FR
Jacques VILLON Young Girl with the Cats (Minne et les chats buvant), 1907 Original etching Handsigned in pencil Limited to 30 copies On linen...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching, Aquatint

All Souls College, Oxford, William Nicholson lithograph 1905 Stafford Gallery
Located in London, GB
To see our other views of Oxford and Cambridge, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller" - or send us a message if you cannot find the view you want. William Nicholson (1872-1949) All Souls College, Oxford Signed, and numbered 98, published by Stafford Gallery with blindstamp Lithograph 35x28cm Probably best known through his graphic works, as a book designer and illustrator, Nicholson was greatly encouraged in his landscapes by Whistler from about 1900. In 1902-03 he produced a series of watercolour, chalk and pen drawings of Oxford which were published in 1905 by the Stafford Gallery as two portfolios of lithographs, with descriptions by Arthur Waugh – father of Evelyn Waugh...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

Materials

Lithograph

Christ Church Library, Oxford College, William Nicholson lithograph 1905
Located in London, GB
To see our other views of Oxford and Cambridge, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller" - or send us a message if you cannot find the view you want. William Nicholson (1872-1949) Christ Church Library, Oxford Signed and numbered 34, published by Stafford Gallery with blind stamp Lithograph 26 x 34.5cm Probably best known through his graphic works, as a book designer and illustrator, Nicholson was greatly encouraged in his landscapes by Whistler from about 1900. In 1902-03 he produced a series of watercolour, chalk and pen drawings of Oxford which were published in 1905 by the Stafford Gallery as two portfolios of lithographs, with descriptions by Arthur Waugh – father of Evelyn Waugh...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Lithograph

Imagerie de Wissembourg - Christmas Santa Claus - Lithograph and stencil - 1906
Located in Paris, FR
Imagerie de Wissembourg Christmas Santa Claus, c. 1906 Lithograph, woodcut and stencil Drawing by C. Burckardt On paper 43 x 32.5 cm (c. 17 x ...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Lithograph, Stencil

Clarendon Building Oxford, William Nicholson lithograph 1905 Stafford Gallery
Located in London, GB
To see our other views of Oxford and Cambridge, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller" - or send us a message if you cannot find the view you want. William Nicholson Clarendon Building, Oxford Signed, published by Stafford Gallery, with their blindstamp Lithograph 32x26cm Probably best known through his graphic works, as a book designer and illustrator, Nicholson was greatly encouraged in his landscapes by Whistler from about 1900. In 1902-03 he produced a series of watercolour, chalk and pen drawings of Oxford which were published in 1905 by the Stafford Gallery as two portfolios of lithographs, with descriptions by Arthur Waugh – father of Evelyn Waugh...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

Materials

Lithograph

Christ Church Oxford College, William Nicholson lithograph 1905 Stafford Gallery
Located in London, GB
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Lithograph

Doorway of the Doges, Venice
Located in New York, NY
Donald Shaw MacLaughlin (1876-1938), Doorway of the Doges, Venice, etching with plate tone, 1909, signed bottom right [also signed and dated in the plate]. Reference: Marie Bruette 1...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching

William Nicholson Garden Front, Wadham College, Oxford Signed 1905 lithograph
Located in London, GB
To see our other views of Oxford and Cambridge, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller" - or send us a message if you cannot find the view you want. William Nicholson (1872-1949) Garden Front with Chapel, Wadham College...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

Materials

Lithograph

Whistler Portrait No. 7 (Six Faces of Whistler)
Located in New York, NY
Mortimer Menpes (1855-1938), Whistler Portrait No. 7 (Six Faces of Whistler), drypoint, 1902-3, signed in pencil and inscribed “imp” bottom right margin. Reference: Morgan 237. Water...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Drypoint

New York, Courtland Street
Located in Roma, IT
Etching, 1908. Image Dimensions: 30 x 17 cm Hand signed and signed on plate. Provenance: Galleria Prandi 26/10/1976. Jean-Émile Laboureur was a French painter, illustrator and engra...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

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Etching

New York, Battery Park - Etching by J.E. Laboureur - 1907
Located in Roma, IT
Etching, 1907. Image Dimensions: 10 x 18.5 cm. Hand signed. Edition of 30 prints. Jean-Émile Laboureur was a French painter, illustrator and engraver who spent his life between Par...
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Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

Materials

Etching

University College, Oxford, William Nicholson lithograph 1905 Stafford Gallery
Located in London, GB
To see our other views of Oxford and Cambridge, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller" - or send us a message if you cannot find the view you want. William Nicholson (1872-1949) University College, Oxford Signed and numbered 114, published by Stafford Gallery, with their blindstamp Lithograph 26 x 35cm Probably best known through his graphic works, as a book designer and illustrator, Nicholson was greatly encouraged in his landscapes by Whistler from about 1900. In 1902-03 he produced a series of watercolour, chalk and pen drawings of Oxford which were published in 1905 by the Stafford Gallery as two portfolios of lithographs, with descriptions by Arthur Waugh – father of Evelyn Waugh...
Category

Early 1900s Realist Prints and Multiples

Materials

Lithograph

Realist prints and multiples for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Realist prints and multiples available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add prints and multiples created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, purple, orange, pink and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Daniel Pollera, Luigi Kasimir, Peter Doig, and John Harris (painter). Frequently made by artists working with Etching, and Lithograph and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Realist prints and multiples, so small editions measuring 0.5 inches across are also available. Prices for prints and multiples made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $50 and tops out at $72,120, while the average work sells for $793.

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