Skip to main content

Impressionist Art

IMPRESSIONIST STYLE

Emerging in 19th-century France, Impressionist art embraced loose brushwork and plein-air painting to respond to the movement of daily life. Although the pioneers of the Impressionist movement — Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir — are now household names, their work was a radical break with an art scene led and shaped by academic traditions for around two centuries. These academies had oversight of a curriculum that emphasized formal drawing, painting and sculpting techniques and historical themes.

The French Impressionists were influenced by a group of artists known as the Barbizon School, who painted what they witnessed in nature. The rejection of pieces by these artists and the later Impressionists from the salons culminated in a watershed 1874 exhibition in Paris that was staged outside of the juried systems. After a work of Monet’s was derided by a critic as an unfinished “impression,” the term was taken as a celebration of their shared interest in capturing fleeting moments as subject matter, whether the shifting weather on rural landscapes or the frenzy of an urban crowd. Rather than the exacting realism of the academic tradition, Impressionist paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings represented how an artist saw a world in motion.

Many Impressionist painters were inspired by the perspectives in imported Japanese prints alongside these shifts in European painting — Édouard Manet drew on ukiyo-e woodblock prints and depicted Japanese design in his Portrait of Émile Zola, for example. American artists such as Mary Cassatt and William Merritt Chase, who studied abroad, were impacted by the work of the French artists, and by the late 19th century American Impressionism had its own distinct aesthetics with painters responding to the rapid modernization of cities through quickly created works that were vivid with color and light.

Find a collection of authentic Impressionist art on 1stDibs.

30
to
194
356
159
229
37
343
170
3
162
130
146
51
27
Overall Height
to
Overall Width
to
6,269
941
452
418
287
140
109
70
65
58
7
4
231
110
107
81
60
49
44
41
38
38
35
33
31
26
24
23
21
20
20
19
17
961
8,928
12,386
318
295
485
377
415
511
525
482
484
9
31
18
13
6
5
418
343
203
186
79
Style: Impressionist
Period: 1950s
Mid Century Serene Lake German Impressionist Landscape
By Karl Lechner
Located in Soquel, CA
Mid Century Serene Lake German Impressionist Landscape by Karl Max Lechner Gorgeous mid-century plein air oil painting of a lake in a sprawling ...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Oil, Cardboard, Canvas

Mid Century Autumn Trees Landscape
Located in Soquel, CA
Vivid mid century landscape of autumn trees blurring into colorful abstraction by Helen Gleiforst (American, 1903-1997). Presented in a giltwood frame. Image size: 10" H X 8" W. G...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Masonite, Oil

"My Name is Freddie" - Portrait of Black Woman with Headscarf
By Lucille H. Olpin
Located in Soquel, CA
A beautiful, painterly portrait of a young black woman with colorful headscarf and sarong by Lucille H. Olpin (Ethel Lucille Harman Olpin), (American, 1909-1990). Signed "Olpin" lowe...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mid Century French Impressionistic Etching - "Degel en Haute Loire"
Located in Soquel, CA
Mid Century Impressionistic French Etching - "Degel en Haute Loire" ("Thaw in High Loire) by Andre Jacquemin Wonderful French Impressionist winter landscape of Loire hills by Andre...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Paper, Ink, Etching

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Mid Century Dutch Windmill Original Oil in French Impressionist Style
Located in Soquel, CA
Mid Century Dutch Windmill Original in French Impressionist Style Colorful French impressionist style oil painting by F. Simont (Dutch 19th/20th Century), circa 1950. Boat anchored ...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Linen, Stretcher Bars, Oil

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

Degas, Composition, Degas Pastels Et Dessins Reproduits Par D. Jacomet (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Engraving on vélin d'Arches paper, mounted on archival museum board, as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition; never framed or matted. Notes: From the folio, Deg...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Engraving

"Avon River - Christ Church, New Zealand" - Mid Century Figurative Landscape
By Leon Worley
Located in Soquel, CA
"Avon River", a beautiful mid century figurative landscape of Christ Church, New Zealand by Leon Worley (American, 1909-2003). Presented in a wooden frame. Signed "Leon Worley" lower...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Cardboard

"Neve in Val Ceresio" Mid Century Impressionist Landscape Oil Painting in Snow
Located in New York, NY
This stunning piece of art titled "Neve in Val Ceresio" is a captivating original work by renowned Italian artist Carlo Aimetti. Aimetti was known for his captivating scenes portrayi...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Signac, Canal St-Martin, Signac Dessins (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Signac Dessins, 1950. Published by George...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Signac, Le trois-mâts au plein, Signac Dessins (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Signac Dessins, 1950. Published by George...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Signac, Rotterdam, Signac Dessins (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Signac Dessins, 1950. Published by George...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Signac, Pont des Arts, Signac Dessins (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Signac Dessins, 1950. Published by George...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Signac, St-Tropez, Signac Dessins (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Signac Dessins, 1950. Published by George...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Signac, Antibes. L'eucalyptus, Signac Dessins (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Signac Dessins, 1950. Published by George...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Signac, Antibes, Signac Dessins (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Signac Dessins, 1950. Published by George...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Signac, St-Paul-de-Vence, Signac Dessins (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Signac Dessins, 1950. Published by George...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Signac, St-Matthieu. Le Sémaphore, Signac Dessins (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Signac Dessins, 1950. Published by George...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Signac, St-Tropez. Le jardin, Signac Dessins (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Signac Dessins, 1950. Published by George...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Signac, L'Hôtel du Nord, Signac Dessins (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Signac Dessins, 1950. Published by George...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Signac, Avignon. Le motif de Jongkind, Signac Dessins (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Signac Dessins, 1950. Published by George...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

Signac, Antibes, Signac Dessins (after)
Located in Auburn Hills, MI
Lithograph on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Signac Dessins, 1950. Published by George...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Lithograph

By Pont Neuf, Paris
Located in Bayonne, NJ
A beautiful watercolor by Mykola Krychevsky depicting a scene by Seine river in Paris, nearby Pont Neuf. Masterfully executed by Mykola in his authentic style. On archival paper, fra...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Watercolor

Antique French Impressionist Paris Street Scene Framed Flower Window Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Very impressive French impressionist street scene thru a flower bouquet and window. Very nicely painted with great color and thick impasto. Housed in a giltwood impressionist frame...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Large Signed French Impressionist Ballet Dancer Original Cafe Scene Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique French impressionist oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Image size, 40L x 30H.
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Landscape with characters spanish original oil on canvas painting
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Joaquim Marsillach i Codony (1905-1986) - Landscape with characters Oil on canvas Oil measures 46x55 cm. Frame measures 69x78 cm. Marsillach Codony, Joaquim. Olot (Gerona), 22.V.190...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mid Century Palm Springs Desert Landscape
Located in Soquel, CA
Mid Century Palm Springs Desert Landscape Wonderful mid century bright and vibrant landscape of a classic Palm Springs desert scene by K. Neidlinger (American 20th Century), circa 1...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

" on vacation" Oil cm. 36 x 29 , 1959
Located in Torino, IT
Painter, vacation, summer, impressionism, picnic, 1950s Russia,Green
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Oil, Cardboard

Signed French Impressionist Paris Street Scene Framed Summer Landscape Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Nicely painted mid 20th century French impressionist landscape. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed.
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American School Signed Framed Mid Century Modern Abstract Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist abstract signed oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Image size, 48L x 36H.
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Avant Printemps au Marais - Impressionist Riverscape Oil by Alexandre Jacob
Located in Marlow, Buckinghamshire
Signed oil on canvas landscape circa 1950 by popular French impressionist painter Alexandre Louis Jacob. The piece depicts horses and their carts being led across small stone bridges...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

French Impressionist mid century cafe scene of two women seated in a Cafe
Located in Woodbury, CT
Francois Gall, Hungarian by birth, became an impressionist painter in the pure French tradition after he moved to Paris in 1936. He was born in Kolozsvar in the former  region of  Tr...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Soleil de Novembre - Impressionist Riverscape Oil by Alexandre Jacob
Located in Marlow, Buckinghamshire
Signed oil on board landscape circa 1950 by popular French impressionist painter Alexandre Louis Jacob. The piece depicts a view of a marsh water mill. The yellow glow of the low Nov...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Oil, Board

"Late Sun" - Carmel by the Sea California Original Oil French Impressionism
Located in Soquel, CA
"Late Sun" - Carmel by the Sea California Original Oil French Impressionism Thick impasto and textured oil on linen circa 1962 by California artist Harry B. Lachman (American, 1886 ...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Linen, Oil

American Winter Landscape 1951 Vintage Oil Painting by Impressionist Master
Located in Stockholm, SE
Peter Kurbatov (1907 – 1985), was a talented painter, graphic artist and writer. He lived a truly eventful life full of creative exploration. Despite the fact that this landscape was...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Wood, Oil, Cardboard

Portrait of Wife
Located in Scottsdale, AZ
Beautiful impressionistic portrait of Soviet master, Aleksei Belykh's, wife. Belykh was a Russian artist from Sverdlovsk. This painting is signed and dated and in great condition. ...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Oil

The Garden Shed - Mid 20th Century Modern British Figurative Landscape Painting
Located in Sevenoaks, GB
A beautiful mid 20th century English oil on canvas depicting a figure in a garden with a ramshackle shed. Very good quality and unusual painting. Signed with a monogram and dated 195...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Quai des bouquinistes- Impressionist Figures in Landscape Oil - Jules Rene Herve
Located in Marlow, Buckinghamshire
Signed figures in cityscape oil on original canvas circa 1950 by French impressionist painter Jules Rene Herve. The piece depicts a view of a bookseller's stall beside the River Seine in Paris, France, with blossom trees overhead. Signature: Signed lower left & again verso Dimensions: Framed: 21"x24" Unframed: 13"x16" Provenance: The Dominion Gallery - Montreal - Canada Jules Rene Hervé began his formal art studies in an evening school in Langres, France. Hervé was trained at the Ecole nationale supérieure d’arts decoratifs of Paris, and studied with Fernand Cormon and Jules Adler...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mid Century Autumn Reflections Oil Paint Landscape
Located in Soquel, CA
Peaceful landscape of a calm stream winding through an autumnal forest by Lorenz Griffith (American, 1889-1968). Signed "Lorenz Griffith" lower left. Titled "Autumn Reflections - Virginia" and dated 1958 on verso. Unframed. Image size: 24"H x 35.5"W. Lorenz E. Griffith was born in Indiana; he was active/lived in North Carolina, Florida, Indiana and many places across the United States. Lorenz Griffith is known for luminist landscapes and portraits. He painted in the style of the Florida Highwaymen...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Masonite, Oil

Fall in the California Foothills Original Oil Painting 1950s
Located in Soquel, CA
Fall in the California Foothills Original Oil Painting 1950s Well executed California Oil painting of the Lower Foothills near Santa Cruz, Californ...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Harvest - Dutch Farm Scene, Original Oil Painting On Canvas
Located in Soquel, CA
The Harvest - Dutch Farm Scene, Original Oil Painting On Canvas Original oil painting depicting Dutch farm workers in a vibrant gold colored field by Dutch artist Von Hassler (Nethe...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Oil, Linen

Still life with Shell
Located in Pasadena, CA
Constantin Font, born January 11, 1890 in Auch (Gers) and died in 1954 in Paris, is a French artist, painter of genre, nudes, landscapes, orientalist, sculptor and engraver. Outstand...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Oil

Le bac a sable - Impressionist Figurative Oil Painting by Jules Rene Herve
Located in Marlow, Buckinghamshire
Signed oil on canvas figures in landscape circa 1950 by French impressionist painter Jules Rene Herve. The work depicts several children dressed in summer clothes playing in a sandpit on a park. There is a bucket and ball in the foreground and beyond the sandpit two older girls in which summer dresses sit on a green park bench in the shade of the bushes. Signature: Signed lower left & again verso Dimensions: Framed: 42"x35" Unframed: 36"x29" Provenance: Private collection - United States. Jules René Hervé (French, 1887-1981) was an Academic painter, born in Langres. Known for his paintings of cityscapes and landscapes, Hervé painted in an impressionistic style that captured the shimmering texture of the city and the softer light of the countryside. Hervé was trained at the Ecole nationale supérieure d'arts decoratifs of Paris, and studied with Fernand Cormon (French 1845-1924) and Jules Adler...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"PRICKLY PEAR PATH " TEXAS HILL COUNTRY CACTUS Frame Size: 21 x 25
Located in San Antonio, TX
Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 12 x 16 Frame Size: 21 x 25 Medium: Oil Dated 1958 "Prickly Pear Path" Texas Hill Country Biography Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) Porfirio Salinas was a self-taught artist who painted landscapes of Central Texas with an emphasis on the vast bluebonnet fields that grow there in the springtime. Born in 1910 in Bastrop, Texas, he attended public schools in San Antonio. He also observed works in progress by the director of the San Antonio Art School, Jose Arpa, as well as landscape painter, Robert Wood. Wood is said to have paid Salinas five dollars a picture to paint bluebonnets because "he hated to paint bluebonnets". Salinas served in the military from 1943 to 1945. Although he was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, he was allowed to live at home. At the fort, Colonel Telesphor Gottchalk assigned him to paint murals for the officer's lounge and various other projects, and Salinas continued to be able to paint during his entire conscripted period. Even before he achieved notoriety among galleries, dealers, and museums, Salinas was widely followed and appreciated by many Texans, including former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who may be considered responsible for launching Salinas popularity beyond the boundaries of Texas. In 1973, Texas capital, Austin, honored Salinas for having "done much to bring the culture of Mexico and Texas closer together with his paintings". Salinas died in April 1973 in San Antonio, Texas. From the years of the Great Depression through President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society of the 1960s, Texan Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) remained one of the Lone Star State's most popular artists. Today, his works remain popular with Texas collectors and those who love landscapes of the beautiful "Hill Country" that lies in the center of the state. One of the first Mexican-American painters to become widely recognized for his art, Salinas was a favorite of President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, as well as of Sam Rayburn, the longest-serving Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Texas Governor John Connelly. In fact, President Johnson was so enamored with his Salinas paintings that the artist will forever be associated with America's first Texas-born President. Works by Porfirio Salinas are in a number of museum collections, grace the halls of the Texas State Capitol and the Governor's Mansion in Austin, and are included in virtually every major private collection of Early Texas Art. Porfirio Salinas was born on November 6, 1910 near the small town of Bastrop, Texas, about thirty miles from Austin. His father, Porfirio G. Salinas (1881-1967), and his mother, Clara G. Chavez, struggled to make a hardscrabble living as tenant farmers, but eventually were forced to give up farming. The family moved to San Antonio, where Salinas' father was able to get a job working as a laborer for the railroad, but the scenic area around Bastrop, with its pine trees and the wide expanse of the Rio Grande River, would forever remain a touchstone for the artist. For the rest of his life, Salinas and his brothers went back frequently to visit their grandmother in her little farmhouse. When in Bastrop, Porfirio painted on the banks of the Rio Grande or in the groves of pine trees. The Salinas family was close-knit and Porfirio was the middle child of five children, so he had an older brother and sister as well as a younger brother and sister. His mother was a native of Mexico, so throughout his childhood the family made the long drive to Mexico to visit Clara Salinas' family. As a child growing up in the bi-lingual section of San Antonio, Salinas drew and painted incessantly and by the time he was ten, he was already producing work that was mature enough to sell to his schoolteachers. Many years later in an article in the New York Times he was described as a "boy whose textbooks were seldom opened and whose sketchbook was never closed." Instead of studying, the young artist spent his spare time watching artists paint in and around San Antonio. As an aspiring painter, Salinas was fortunate to grow up in the historic city, which had the most active art scene in Texas. It was his exposure to older, professional painters that encouraged the precocious young painter to leave school early in order to help his family and pursue a career as a professional artist, despite his father's inability to see art as a career with any future for his son. When Salinas was about fifteen he came to know the artist Robert W. Wood (1889-1979). He met Wood while he was employed in an art supply store and he soon began to work as an assistant to the English-born painter, who had moved from Portland to San Antonio in 1924. Although the diminutive Englishman was already an established professional artist, he did not have a great deal of formal art training and so he was then studying with the academically trained Spanish painter Jose Arpa (1858-1952) in order to augment his knowledge and give his work a more polished look. Salinas was an eager young man, and while working in Wood's downtown San Antonio studio he learned to stretch canvases, frame paintings and to sketch in larger compositions from small plein-air studies for the English artist. He began to accompany Wood and Arpa to the hills outside San Antonio, where they painted small Plein-air studies of fields of blue lupin - the state flower, the famous "Bluebonnets" of Texas - in the springtime and scenes of the gnarled Red Oaks as they changed color in the fall. He was soon assisting Wood in the tedious work of painting the tiny blue flowers that collectors wanted to see in the landscapes they purchased of central Texas. According to a 1972 newspaper story, "Legend has it that one day in the 1920s artist Robert Wood decided he could not bear to paint another bluebonnet in one of his landscapes. He hired young Porfirio Salinas to paint them in for him at five dollars a painting." Whether this story is accurate or apocryphal isn't clear, but the ambitious and independent young Salinas wasn't destined to be anyone's assistant for very long. The formative event of Porfirio Salinas' teenage years was the Texas Wildflower Competitive Exhibitions, a Roaring-Twenties dream of the eccentric oilman Edgar B. Davis (1873-1951). These competitive shows of paintings of wildflowers and Texas life were mounted in San Antonio from 1927 to 1929. Held at the newly opened Witte Museum each spring, the exhibition featured large cash prizes donated by the philanthropic Davis, which were an inducement for artists to travel from all over the United States to paint in the Hill Country of Texas. The "Davis Competitions," as they were known, helped to cement San Antonio's reputation as an art center, a legacy that remains with the "River City" today. The shows generated a great deal of excitement in the area, helping to make celebrities of the some of the artists who had already settled there and encouraging others to make San Antonio their home. Over the three years that the wildflower competitions were held, more than 300 paintings were exhibited, and many thousands of viewers saw the paintings at the Witte Museum and on tours throughout the state and in New York. Each year Davis would generously purchase the winning paintings and then donate them to the San Antonio Art League. Young Porfirio Salinas would have been able to not only watch his two mentors - Robert W. Wood and Jose Arpa - paint the works that they entered in the Davis Competitions, he would have been able to see Arpa take several of the major prizes, receiving the judge's accolades for "Verbena," "Cactus Flower" and "Picking Cotton," works that are still on view at the San Antonio Art League Museum today. Unfortunately, Davis eventually put his donations to work in other charitable endeavors, bringing to an end the wildflower events, but only after they inspired Salinas and other young painters and had helped to make wildflower paintings the most sought-after subject for traditionalist Texas collectors. In 1930, when he was only twenty, Salinas hung out a shingle and began to paint professionally, augmenting the sales of his easel paintings with what little business he could garner by painting signs for local concerns. It was a struggle for the young artist to make a living, as the effects of the Great Depression were settling in. His early works are very similar to those of Robert Wood's, both in subject matter and treatment. Salinas did small paintings of Bluebonnets for the tourists who visited San Antonio to see the famous Alamo as well as paintings of the Texas missions. While a few of his early works have a soft, tonalist quality, with subtle gradations of sunset colors, most were painted in a style that fits well within the currents of the late American Impressionist style, with solid drawing and a warm, chromatic palette. Like Robert Wood's works of the 1930s, the paintings Salinas produced as a young man were usually well composed and detailed views of the spring wildflowers in full bloom in the Texas countryside. In contrast to Wood's work, however, early Salinas compositions were usually pure landscapes without the pioneer farms or dilapidated fences that Wood often used to add visual interest to his wildflower scenes, and he also painted scenes of San Antonio itself as his mentor Jose Arpa had done. To residents of the Hill Country, Salinas was especially adept at accurately capturing the palette of the region and its unique atmosphere. In 1939 Salinas began working with Dewey Bradford (1896-1985), one of the great characters of Texas art. Bradford was a second-generation dealer whose family operated the Bradford Paint Company in Austin, where they sold art supplies, framed artwork, restored paintings and exhibited paintings by Texas artists. Salinas was struggling when he met Bradford, but the older man took the young artist under his wing and began to sell his work reliably, even though the prices that people would pay for a painting were still low due to the lingering effects of the Great Depression. Bradford was a born salesman with a gift for storytelling, and truth be told, a bit of embroidery. The relationship between Bradford and Salinas was often rocky, but it was to last the rest of the artist's life and give him a modest sense of loyalty and security, things which are all too rare in the art world. While Bradford could be critical of his work, Salinas knew that he had a dealer who encouraged him, believed in him and was not shy about singing his praises to anyone who entered Bradford's store on Guadalupe Street. During the early years of World War II Salinas met a pretty Mexican woman from Guadalajara named Maria Bonillas, who was working as a secretary for the Mexican National Railways office in San Antonio. While he was walking downtown with a painting of a bullfighter under his arm, he started a conversation with the young woman, and things progressed rapidly. The couple were married on February 15, 1942 and settled into life in bi-lingual San Antonio and they eventually purchased a tidy stone home on Buena Vista street that had a detached studio in back. By the time the United States entered World War II, Salinas was starting to make a decent living selling his art and beginning to garner recognition across Texas. However, in 1943, like millions of other young men, he was drafted into the service of his country. Fortunately, as an older Army draftee with special talents, after his training he was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, right in San Antonio, allowing him to remain at home while still completing his obligation to "Uncle Sam." Because of his artistic abilities, Salinas was asked to do paintings for the Army as well as a mural for the Officer's Club, which has been re-discovered in recent years. In his spare time he kept working on landscapes and when the war ended in 1945, he was not faced with the same rocky transition from military to civilian life as many veterans. That same year, Salinas became a father as he and Maria celebrated the birth of his only child, Christina Maria Salinas. Like most landscape artists of the era, Salinas was an avid Plein-air painter, and he took his easel and paint box with him on trips throughout Texas and into Mexico. He and his wife traveled deep into her native country, where the artist painted the majestic volcanic peaks of Iztaccihuatl (known as the "Sleeping Woman" because of its unique shape) and Popocatepetl (called the "smoking mountain" because the volcano is still active), south of Mexico City. Salinas also painted studies of rustic villages and their residents. While his most popular paintings were always the scenes of the Texas Bluebonnets and other wildflowers that bloom all over the Hill Country in the spring, he also painted scenes of the twisted Texas oak trees of central Texas, the more arid landscapes of the Texas panhandle and West Texas, and the historic Texas missions; he even sold rapidly executed scenes of bullfights and cockfights for Mexican-American collectors. By the late 1940s, the American economy was finally growing again and wealthier Texans began to collect Salinas paintings, purchasing them from galleries in San Antonio and Dallas and at Dewey Bradford's County Store Gallery in Austin. Salinas also sold work to the Atlanta dealer Dr. Carlton Palmer, who represented Robert W. Wood for many years. In 1948 Palmer sold two large Salinas paintings to the Citizen National Bank in Abilene, Texas. Because Austin was the state capitol, Bradford counted many of the state's elite among his patrons, and due to his interest in history and literature, he played a large role in the cultural history of central Texas. Bradford introduced a number of the major Texas political figures to Salinas' work, including Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973), who was then in the House of Representatives and on his way to winning a controversial election that vaulted him in the United States Senate. Johnson became an enthusiastic collector, as did his political mentor, the legendary House Speaker Sam Rayburn (1882-1961). Johnson decorated his Washington offices with Salinas paintings and he brought a number of them home to his vast LBJ Ranch, near Johnson City, Texas. In spite of his important patrons, Salinas went through a fallow and difficult period in the late 1950s. He had a volatile temperament, which made relationships difficult, and it took great patience for his wife to help him manage his career. As Salinas entered middle age his work began to sell steadily, but except for tourists who purchased his paintings in San Antonio, he was known primarily only to Texas art collectors. All that changed in 1961 with the election of John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) to the Presidency of the United States and his running mate Lyndon Johnson to the Vice Presidency. Johnson was an expansive, larger-than-life character and his status as a long, tall Texan in a cowboy hat was a large part of his imposing political image. During his storied career in the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson (1912-2007) spent their time in Washington in a modest house on the edge of Rock Creek Park, but this home would not do for a Vice President. So, in 1961, the Johnsons purchased a French chateau-styled home in the Spring Valley section of the Capitol. Obtained from the famed socialite and ambassador Perle Mesta (1889-1975), the house came with a fine collection of French furniture and tapestries, and the designer Genevieve Hendricks was hired to meld the French look with objects from the Johnsons' overseas travels and paintings of the flora and fauna of their native Texas. Featured prominently in the foyer were the paintings of Porfirio Salinas. Because of the Johnsons' patronage, his work was mentioned in Time Magazine and other national publications. Lady Bird Johnson loved her landscapes of the Texas Hill Country and told reporters that, "I want to see them when ever I open the door, to remind me where I come from." After President Kennedy's death thrust Lyndon Johnson into the Presidency, he brought his Salinas paintings into the historic halls of the White House, further enhaning the Texas painter's national reputation. At the time of the President Kennedy's assassination, Salinas had completed a scene of a horse drinking titled "Rocky Creek" that was to have been presented to Kennedy during his ill-fated visit to Dallas. Instead, in an effort to memorialize the fallen President, Salinas painted a symbolic work of a lone horse depicted against foreboding clouds. During his tenure in the White House, President Johnson presented a Salinas landscape as a state gift to the President of Mexico, Gustavo Diaz Ordaz (1911-1979). During the 1960s, Salinas paintings sold briskly and, thanks to Presidential patronage, for escalating prices. In an interview with a writer from the New York Times, President Johnson enthused about the work of "his favorite artist" and said that, "his work reminds me of the country around the ranch." Salinas was invited to the LBJ Ranch frequently during the Johnson administration and his paintings were hung throughout the ranch, in the President's offices and even in the private quarters of the White House. The connection to President Johnson was a great boon to sales of Salinas paintings, and in 1964, when the demand was at its height, Texas Governor John Connelly (1917-1993) was told that all Salinas'work was sold and that he would have to wait for a painting. In 1960, a half century after his birth, Salinas was honored by his home town of Bastrop, a celebration that touched the modest artist. In 1962 Salinas was given a solo exhibition at the Witte Museum in San Antonio that featured more than twenty of his works. By the early 1960s, sales of reproductions of the artist's landscapes by the New York Graphic Society and other publishers grew rapidly, enlarging his audience throughout the United States. In 1967, Dewey Bradford helped to organize the production of a book of Texas stories titled "Bluebonnets and Cactus" (Austin: Pemberton Press: 1967), which was profusely illustrated with paintings by Salinas. His works were still popular when Salinas died after a brief illness in April of 1973, just a few months after former President Johnson's passing. He was memorialized in the City of Austin by Porfirio Salinas Day, which honored him for having "done much to bring the culture of Mexico and Texas together with his paintings." Bastrop, Texas, the city of the artist's birth, has been holding a Salinas Art Exhibition annually since 1981. He painted hundreds of scenes of the wildflowers, including the various varieties of Blue Lupin, the state flower, as well as other flowering flora. These show the influence of his artistic mentors Robert W. Wood and Jose Arpa Y Perea. Salinas also painted a number of scenes of Prickly Pear Cactus that show the influence of the English painter Dawson Dawson-Watson (1864-1939), who painted many such works during his tenure in Texas. He painted the more arid Texas landscape infrequently and these works are very rare today and sought after by collectors from the Texas Panhandle and West Texas. Salinas also painted many river landscapes along the Guadalupe, Rio Frio, the San Antonio and the Rio Grande. On trips to his wife's homeland of Mexico, he painted a number of scenes of the volcanic peaks as well as scenes of peasant villages and villagers. Figurative paintings are rare among Salinas' works and these scenes of bullfights, fandangos and cock fights are probably the least sought after of his paintings. There are also a small number of modest marines, painted on trips to the Texas and California coast. Salinas paintings are highly prized by collectors of early Texas art, with the paintings of wildflowers in greatest demand. Works by Porfirio Salinas can be found in a number of public collections, including the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas; the Texas State Capitol; the Texas Governor's Mansion; the Lyndon Baines Johnson Ranch; the Sam Rayburn Library and Museum in Bonham, Texas; Amarillo High School; the Witte Museum in San Antonio; the historic Joan and Price Daniel House in San Antonio; the Stark Museum in Orange, Texas; the R.W. Norton Art Gallery in Shreveport, Louisiana; the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center in Pueblo, Colorado; Texas A & M University and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Salinas has been featured in a number of reference works as well as anthologies devoted to American Western Art...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Oil

Lighthouse at the Shore — Impressionist Pen and Ink Landscape Drawing
Located in Soquel, CA
Lighthouse at the Shore Maine - Impressionist Original Pen and Ink Drawing Landscape Delicate landscape pen and ink line drawing by listed Ma...
Category

1950s Impressionist Art

Materials

Paper, Permanent Marker, Ink

Impressionist art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Impressionist art 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 art created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue and other colors. Many Pop art Paintings/style/impressionist/?creator=richard-szkutnik>paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Vahe Yeremyan, Richard Szkutnik, Iryna Kastsova, and Mitchell Funk. Frequently made by artists working with Oil Paint, and Paint and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Impressionist art, so small editions measuring 8 inches across are also available. Prices for art 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 $225 and tops out at $7,200, while the average work sells for $1,423.

Recently Viewed

View All