Contemporary Abstract Art for Sale

An Introduction to Abstract Art

From surrealism and futurism to abstract expressionism, the call to abstraction has been one of the defining aspects of modern art. The roots of abstract art lie in late 19th century painting. Impressionist art began to seek out what artists like Claude Monet and Edgar Degas considered more faithful representations of the natural world. Artists of Expressionism also pursued a reality beyond the real, but did so by attempting to focus on and portray inner experience. In the period between the two World Wars, Surrealism took rise as a current which used a mixed pallette of realistic and magical representation, in order to elucidate that in the real world which pointed to something beyond.

The agenda of pursuing a distinctly abstract, or "non-objective" art, began contemporaneously in Europe and Russia. In Europe, avant gardists like Picasso and Piet Mondrian explored new techniques and philosophies, driven by concerns which drifted increasingly away from realism. In Russia, Wladimir Kandinsky and then Kazimir Malevich propagated powerful variants of "spiritualist" artistic theory, understanding the artist as priveleged to perceive primordial forms in the world and transform it through artistic creation, and conceiving of color and line as possessing extranatural qualities. For them, art was a vehicle to spiritual or social truth, and for its attainment in the hands of the artist. For these artists, the non-objective quality of their efforts denoted the pursuit of "realities" which were unlike the naturally-provided real. In their famous paintings and drawings, color, form, and line revealed new and previously unexplored realities.

20th century abstract art

Throughout the 20th century, abstract art has been a seminal force in painting, drawing, photography, and sculpture. In the mid-20th century, abstract expressionism took off in the United States as a profoundly new movement, radicalizing and popularizing some of the fundamental ideas of abstract painters and modernist theorists. Artists like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko created abstract paintings which to reflected the artist's physical movements, rather than the strict product of a preintended blueprint for executing the artwork. It combined the abstract as a technique of representation with expressionism as a philosophy of showing the inside on the outside.

By the mid 1960's, the authority of abstract expressionism gave way to new movements, which were centered on the decorative, functional, and social aspects of art. Transitional movements like Pop Art and neo-expressionism, with figures like Robert Rauschenberg, Keith Haring and Alex Katz led the way from art as concerned with theory and method to art as concerned with life and society.

Movements like minimalist art privileged abstract and geometrical representations above all, eschewing all superfluous and representational elements. Mid century modern art in furniture, architecture, household objects, painting and photography pushed above all for pragmatism and economy in artistic production.

Lumas Abstract Photography

The LUMAS portfolio includes a wealth of contemporary art produced by skilled and accomplished abstract photographers. Explore our collection, and discover the world of abstract photography!

Shop Abstract Art by Color

In the beginning, abstraction was largely a meditation on the most basic of concepts: shape, line and color. Discover our curated collections, and shop abstract art by color.

Street and Urban

Our collection of urban and street art contains a number of fascinating and colorful abstract pieces in the tradition of street art.

Nature

Nature Art lends itself well to abstraction. In seeking out the formal properties underlying experience, abstract artists often turn directly to nature.

Landscape

Our collection of abstract landscape art contains unworldly mountainscapes, oceanscapes, aerial photographs, and more.

Black and White

It is often said that in its eschewal of aesthetic diversity, black and white is closest to the impulse that drives abstract art: the search for the reality underlying everyday experience. Explore our entire collection of black and white art.

Portrait

Perhaps the most exciting example of abstraction in photography is in portrait art. Whether human or animal portraits, the face and the body are rich canvases for many photo artists and photographers.

Architecture

Artists often find interesting narratives hidden in buildings and construction material. Others work directly with architecture as an object of artistic creation.

Flowers

For millenia, humans have projected onto flowers, using them as inspiration for sentiments about life, death and regeneration. In contemporary flower art, they still hold this power.

Curated Selection of Abstract Artworks