Traditionally, fine art is created solely for the purpose of aesthetics or creative expression, whereas decorative or applied art also needs to offer a practical function. This means that fine artists have no functional restrictions and are free to let their imaginations run wild! While we in the print industry do incorporate practicality into our designs, making things aesthetically pleasing is also important to us. Everyone loves a pretty print!
Thanks to the liberated imaginations of so many artists, the fine art world offers a limitless supply of inspiration and teachings. Paintings and works on paper from history help us cultivate ideas and originality for many of our prints. Let’s take a mini-tour of the art world to see how it’s shaped our print collection at SPS!
Henri Matisse
Matisse, a French visual artist, was known for his cutouts. We love his use of abstract shapes in these works of art, so we included similar shapes amongst our representational ones in this cutout print.
Edgar Degas
Degas, another French artist, worked in the Impressionist style and was fascinated by dance. His ballet dancers, loose brushwork, and soft color palettes inspired us to create this print and others.
Georgia O'Keeffe
O’Keeffe was an American artist who was famous for her Modernist paintings of flowers. While the massive scale of her paintings doesn’t always apply well to fashion prints, her application of paint to create soft transitions of muted color was a look we wanted to recreate.
Piet Mondrian
Mondrian, a Dutch artist, came to be known for his abstract geometric paintings. His use of primary colors in a grid layout is iconic. Our geometric print emulates his style in a more commercial-friendly colorway.
Ellsworth Kelly
Kelly was an American artist, and while he was primarily focused on Color Field painting and Minimalism, he also did a large number of contour drawings of leaves and flowers. We mimicked his clean, confident linework to give a sense of movement in this floral print.
Jackson Pollock
Pollock, an American painter, was a member of the Abstract Expressionist movement and known for his “drip technique” of splashing and pouring paint on the canvas. He has been our inspiration for many splatter prints, including this one.
Gerhard Richter
Richter is a German artist who still lives and works in Germany. He has a large body of work, but his abstract paintings have influenced us to create prints that feature large brush strokes and smears of paint.
Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh, a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter and household name, created thousands of paintings, including the famous Starry Night. Although our interpretation is abtracted, we love the swirling brush strokes that are so reminiscent of Van Gogh’s style.
There is no end to inspiration from the fine art world! And we love how many prints that we have created from its influence. It’s a certain type of satisfaction when two different creative fields overlap and affect one another. Art inspires art!
Each one of the prints displayed above is labeled so that you can easily search it in our catalog and purchase it from your account. Feel free to also reach out to us if you’d like to purchase or see similar prints. Thanks for taking our mini-tour of the art world and our collection. Stay tuned for more!