Top 10 20th-Century Art Styles to Create for a Modern Gallery Wall at Home
That blank wall in your living room is staring back at you, isn't it? It’s a canvas of possibility, calling out for character, color, and a story. The gallery wall is the perfect answer—a curated collection of art that tells the world who you are. But with a universe of prints, paintings, and posters at your fingertips, the sheer choice can be paralyzing. Where do you even begin?
Instead of endlessly scrolling through generic "live, laugh, love" prints, let's take a trip back in time for some truly timeless inspiration. The 20th century wasn't just a period of immense change; it was an explosion of artistic creativity. Artists broke every rule in the book, inventing new ways to see and represent the world. These movements, from the jarring angles of Cubism to the bold punch of Pop Art, offer a rich palette of styles that feel surprisingly fresh and modern today.
Here at the Goh Ling Yong blog, we believe that creating a home you love means infusing it with personality. Tapping into these iconic art styles allows you to do just that. You can create your own pieces, find affordable prints, or mix and match to build a gallery wall that’s not just beautiful, but also a conversation starter. Ready to become your own curator? Let’s explore ten 20th-century art styles perfect for your modern gallery wall.
1. Cubism: Deconstruct and Rebuild
Kicking off the century with a bang, Cubism completely shattered traditional perspectives. Spearheaded by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, this revolutionary style abandoned the idea of a single viewpoint. Instead, artists depicted subjects from multiple angles simultaneously, breaking them down into geometric forms and reassembling them into a flattened, fragmented image. The goal was to represent a deeper, more complete sense of an object or person than a single snapshot ever could.
The classic Cubist palette is often muted, focusing on browns, grays, and ochres to emphasize form over color. However, later iterations of the style embraced brighter hues. For a gallery wall, a Cubist piece adds intellectual depth and a strong graphic element. It’s angular, thought-provoking, and a fantastic way to introduce abstract art into your home without going fully non-representational.
How to Create It:
- DIY Project: Choose a simple object for a still life—a guitar, a vase of flowers, or a bowl of fruit. Sketch it from the front, the side, and from above. Then, combine these different views into a single drawing, using straight lines and geometric shapes (cubes, cones, cylinders) to define the forms. Fill it in with a limited color palette.
- Quick Tip: Create a digital collage. Take a photograph, then use a photo editing app to slice it into geometric sections and rearrange them. Print it on high-quality matte paper for a sophisticated finish.
2. Fauvism: Unleash Wild Color
If Cubism was an intellectual exercise, Fauvism was a gut-punch of pure emotion. Led by Henri Matisse and André Derain, the Fauves (French for "wild beasts") used intense, non-naturalistic colors to convey feeling. A tree didn't have to be green and brown; it could be screaming red and electric blue if that’s what the artist felt. Brushstrokes were bold, energetic, and expressive.
This style is perfect for injecting a dose of joyful, untamed energy into your gallery wall. A Fauvist-inspired piece is vibrant, optimistic, and commands attention. It’s less about realistic depiction and all about the sheer pleasure of color. It pairs beautifully with more neutral or minimalist pieces, acting as a brilliant focal point.
How to Create It:
- DIY Project: Grab some acrylics or oil pastels and find a simple landscape photo. Now, throw the real colors out the window. Paint the sky orange, the water purple, and the grass pink. Don't blend your colors—let the bold, separate brushstrokes show. Focus on the energy of the scene, not the details.
- Quick Tip: This style is very forgiving for beginners. Lean into the "wild" aspect and don't worry about perfection. The rawer and more expressive, the better.
3. Art Deco: Embrace Glamour and Geometry
Step into the roaring twenties and the age of jazz, skyscrapers, and unparalleled glamour. Art Deco is a style of pure elegance and sophistication. It’s characterized by sharp symmetry, bold geometric patterns (think sunbursts, chevrons, and zig-zags), and a sense of streamlined modernity. The aesthetic celebrated the machine age with clean lines and luxurious materials.
An Art Deco piece brings a touch of timeless opulence to a gallery wall. Its clean, graphic nature ensures it feels modern, not dated. It’s perfect for creating a sense of order and luxury, and its repeating patterns can tie a disparate collection of art together. Think of the iconic Chrysler Building in New York—that’s the powerful, elegant vibe you’re channeling.
How to Create It:
- DIY Project: Use painter's tape and metallic paint (gold, silver, or bronze) on a black or dark-colored canvas. Create a symmetrical sunburst or a series of repeating chevrons. The sharp, clean lines are key. You can also use stencils to create intricate fan or shell patterns.
- Quick Tip: Look for Art Deco-inspired digital prints online. Many graphic designers have created beautiful, modern interpretations of this style that you can download and print at home.
4. Surrealism: Explore the Dream World
Have you ever had a dream that was bizarre yet felt completely real? That’s the world of Surrealism. Influenced by the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, artists like Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, and Max Ernst sought to unlock the power of the subconscious mind. They created unsettling, illogical scenes with photographic precision, juxtaposing everyday objects in strange and startling ways—think melting clocks and floating men in bowler hats.
A surrealist piece on your gallery wall is a guaranteed conversation starter. It’s weird, wonderful, and deeply personal. It adds a touch of mystery and invites viewers to look closer and question what they’re seeing. This style encourages you to play, to be nonsensical, and to create something that comes purely from your imagination.
How to Create It:
- DIY Project: The perfect medium for modern surrealism is collage, either physical or digital. Cut out images from old magazines or find royalty-free images online. Combine them in illogical ways: place an elephant in a teacup, give a portrait a clock for a face, or make fish swim through a cloudy sky.
- Quick Tip: Focus on creating a seamless blend. Use a photo editor to match lighting and shadows to make your bizarre creation look photorealistically plausible.
5. Abstract Expressionism: Paint Your Feelings
Emerging in New York after World War II, Abstract Expressionism was all about raw, unfiltered emotion expressed on a massive scale. Artists like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko moved away from representing objects and instead focused on the physical act of painting itself. This was art about energy, process, and the artist's inner world made visible.
This style is fantastic for DIY art because it’s less about technical skill and more about intuition and movement. A small-scale "action painting" can be a powerful, energetic centerpiece for your gallery wall, providing texture and dynamic motion. Alternatively, a color field painting with large blocks of soft-edged color can create a serene, meditative mood.
How to Create It:
- DIY Project (Action Painting): Take a small canvas outside or lay down a large drop cloth. Use house paint or watered-down acrylics and simply drip, splash, and drizzle the paint onto the canvas. Use sticks, spoons, or your hands. Move your whole body and let the process be spontaneous and fun.
- DIY Project (Color Field): Choose two or three complementary colors. Use a large brush or a sponge to apply them to a canvas in large, rectangular blocks. Let the edges be soft and blend slightly to create a vibrating, atmospheric effect.
6. Pop Art: Celebrate the Everyday
BOOM! POW! In the 1950s and 60s, artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein looked to the world of mass media and consumer culture for inspiration. They took everyday objects—like Campbell's soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles—and images from comic books and advertisements and elevated them to the status of high art. Pop Art is characterized by bold, bright colors, hard edges, and a cool, detached sense of humor.
Pop Art is perfect for a modern gallery wall because it’s fun, vibrant, and instantly recognizable. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and adds a playful, graphic punch to any space. It’s also an incredibly personalizable style. Why a soup can when you can immortalize your favorite brand of coffee or even your own pet? As an artist and writer, I, Goh Ling Yong, find Pop Art's recontextualization of the mundane to be a constant source of inspiration.
How to Create It:
- DIY Project: Take a high-contrast photo of a person, pet, or simple object. Use a free photo editor (like Canva or Photopea) to apply a "posterize" or "threshold" filter. This will reduce the image to a few simple color areas. Print it out and paint over it in wildly bright, non-realistic colors. Create four versions in different colorways for a classic Warhol-style quadriptych.
- Quick Tip: Look for fonts inspired by comic books to add words like "Wow!" or "Pop!" to your piece for a Lichtenstein-inspired touch.
7. Bauhaus: Where Form Meets Function
The Bauhaus was a German school of art and design that operated from 1919 to 1933, but its influence is still felt everywhere today. Its core philosophy was to unify art, craft, and technology. The Bauhaus style is clean, functional, and geometric. It strips away ornamentation to focus on the essential forms, often using a limited palette of primary colors (red, yellow, blue) plus black and white.
A Bauhaus-inspired print is the epitome of modern graphic design. It’s a perfect fit for a contemporary or minimalist home, adding a touch of sophisticated, intellectual style. The focus on clean lines, simple shapes (circles, squares, triangles), and balanced compositions makes it incredibly versatile. It pairs well with almost any other style on this list.
How to Create It:
- DIY Project: This is a great project for digital creation. Using a simple graphic design program, play with overlapping basic geometric shapes. Experiment with composition, balance, and asymmetry. Stick to a primary color palette for that authentic Bauhaus look.
- Quick Tip: Think about typography. A simple, sans-serif font can be a key element of your design. Try arranging the letters of a word or your initials as a purely graphic element.
8. Minimalism: Less is More
Reacting against the emotional intensity of Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism emerged in the 1960s with a simple mantra: "less is more." Artists like Donald Judd and Frank Stella stripped their work down to its most fundamental features: color, form, and material. The art wasn't about anything other than its own physical presence. It’s about simplicity, purity, and quiet contemplation.
In a cluttered world, a minimalist piece can be a breath of fresh air on your gallery wall. It provides a visual resting place, a moment of calm among more complex pieces. A minimalist work can be a single bold line on a textured background, two blocks of solid color side-by-side, or a simple black circle on a white canvas. Its power lies in its restraint.
How to Create It:
- DIY Project: Stretch a textured fabric like linen or raw canvas over a frame. Paint a single, simple shape or line on it. Don’t overthink it. The texture of the material becomes as important as the mark you make.
- Quick Tip: Focus on high-quality materials. Since the piece is so simple, the quality of the paper, the richness of the paint color, and the texture of the canvas will be on full display.
9. Op Art: Dazzle the Eye
Get ready to feel a little dizzy. Op Art, or Optical Art, which became popular in the 1960s, is all about playing tricks on the eye. Artists like Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely used precise geometric patterns, contrast, and color theory to create illusions of movement, vibration, or hidden images. This is art that is truly interactive; it seems to shimmer, swell, or warp as you look at it.
Op Art is a bold, high-impact choice for a gallery wall. A single piece can create a powerful, mesmerizing focal point. It feels incredibly modern, a bit futuristic, and injects a sense of dynamic energy into a room. Its typically black-and-white palette makes it a surprisingly versatile neutral that can tie a colorful gallery wall together.
How to Create It:
- DIY Project: This style requires precision. Use a ruler and high-quality painter's tape to mask off a pattern of wavy lines, concentric squares, or a checkerboard pattern on a canvas or board. Use high-contrast black and white paint for the most dramatic effect. Carefully remove the tape to reveal your crisp, clean optical illusion.
- Quick Tip: Start simple. A pattern of converging lines that create the illusion of depth is an easy and effective way to start experimenting with Op Art.
10. Futurism: Capture Speed and Motion
The Futurists were obsessed with the 20th century itself. They celebrated dynamism, speed, technology, and the machine. Italian artists like Umberto Boccioni and Giacomo Balla wanted to capture the chaotic, energetic pulse of modern life. They did this by showing objects in motion, using rhythmic, repeating lines and fragmented forms to create a sensation of movement and blurring, similar to time-lapse photography.
For a modern gallery wall, a Futurist-inspired piece adds an undeniable sense of energy. It’s perfect for a home office to inspire productivity or a living room to add a dynamic buzz. You can interpret this style through painting, drawing, or even photography to capture the feeling of a world in constant, exhilarating motion.
How to Create It:
- DIY Project: Take a photo of a moving object with a slow shutter speed—cars on a highway at night, a dancer, or even just you waving your hand with a light source. The resulting light trails create a perfect Futurist effect.
- Quick Tip: In a drawing or painting, try depicting a single object (like a walking dog) multiple times in slightly different positions, overlapping the images to create the illusion of its path of movement.
Your Wall, Your Story
The 20th century gave us an incredible artistic toolkit, and there's a style in its vast catalog for every taste and every home. Don't be afraid to mix and match. Pair a glamorous Art Deco print with a raw, emotional Abstract Expressionist piece. Let a minimalist work provide a quiet counterpoint to a vibrant Pop Art creation. The most compelling gallery walls are the ones that reflect the diverse, multifaceted personality of the person who created them.
The goal isn't to perfectly replicate a Picasso or a Matisse. It's to capture the spirit of these movements—the rebellious color of Fauvism, the dreamlike logic of Surrealism, the sleek geometry of the Bauhaus—and use it to tell your own story.
So, which of these styles sparks your imagination? Are you ready to get your hands dirty with some action painting, or will you create a precise and dazzling Op Art piece? We'd love to see what you create. Share a picture of your 20th-century-inspired gallery wall on Instagram and tag us—we can't wait to be inspired by you
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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