Last year I started doing jigsaw puzzles, which are great for getting away from screens, and mental health generally. There’s tons of them out there (see just how many on reddit), including some with beautiful artwork. Here’s some I’ve done so far.
My first vintage puzzle, circa 1999 Peter Max poster trio, bought on eBay, very fun and groovy.
My first Heye puzzle…. just liked the image a lot, and it was fun because of the colors.
My first 500 piece puzzle… too easy to be really satisfying, but a fantastic image by William Johnson, an artist I didn’t previously know about.
This 1934 painting by Archibald Motley portrays the commercial strip of Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood and is typical of his highly expressive, color-saturated portrayals of urban life during and after the Harlem renaissance.
If you like words and typography, this is a fun one.
I lived near Rex Ray’s studio for almost twenty years, but didn’t know about him until I discovered a limited-edition book of his work in 2015. He unfortunately died that year. Wonderful art, sorry to have missed him.
I have a picture of my dad when he was young with this lion. Can’t beat the NYPL and the New Yorker typeface, and the pigeons are a nice touch.
No one does small town America better than Edward Hopper in my opinion.
A beautiful and really cool design. I hadn’t heard of Charles White but really liked this one.
This one was hard to do, lots of areas/patterns that look the same. This puzzle’s now out of stock because they licensed the design to another company.
This painting grew on me a lot while I was doing it. I always loved Thiebaud’s bubble gum dispenser… wish they’d make that into a puzzle.