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Georges Seurat: The Drawings
October 28, 2007–January 7, 2008
The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Gallery, sixth floor
Once described as "the most beautiful painter's drawings in existence," Georges Seurat's mysterious and luminous works on paper played a crucial role in his short, vibrant career. This comprehensive exhibition—the first in almost twenty-five years to focus exclusively on Seurat's drawings—will present over 135 works, primarily the artist's incomparable conté drawings along with a small selection of oil sketches and paintings. Surveying the artist's entire oeuvre, from his academic training through the emergence and elaboration of his unique methods to the studies made for his monumental canvases (such as the renowned A Sunday on La Grande Jatte), the exhibition will also present important new research on his artistic strategies and materials.
In bridging description and evocation, Seurat masses tones to abstract figures, weaves skeins of conté crayon to test the limits of decipherable space, and engages with the Parisian metropolis, illuminating urban types, revealing the ever-expanding industrial suburbs, and offering a tour through the world of nineteenth-century popular entertainment. Most of all, his dramatization of the relationship between light and shadow resulted in a distinct body of work. Though Seurat is perhaps best known as the inventor of pointillism, this exhibition will demonstrate his tremendous achievement as a draftsman and the significance of his working methods and themes for the art of the twentieth century.
In bridging description and evocation, Seurat masses tones to abstract figures, weaves skeins of conté crayon to test the limits of decipherable space, and engages with the Parisian metropolis, illuminating urban types, revealing the ever-expanding industrial suburbs, and offering a tour through the world of nineteenth-century popular entertainment. Most of all, his dramatization of the relationship between light and shadow resulted in a distinct body of work. Though Seurat is perhaps best known as the inventor of pointillism, this exhibition will demonstrate his tremendous achievement as a draftsman and the significance of his working methods and themes for the art of the twentieth century.
Organized by Jodi Hauptman, Associate Curator, Department of Drawings, The Museum of Modern Art.
The exhibition is made possible by The Starr Foundation.
The Museum acknowledges a generous grant from the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust.
Major support is provided by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Additional funding is provided by Susan G. Jacoby, The Norman and Rosita Winston Foundation, and Cultural Services, Embassy of France in the United States.
The exhibition is made possible by The Starr Foundation.
The Museum acknowledges a generous grant from the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust.
Major support is provided by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Additional funding is provided by Susan G. Jacoby, The Norman and Rosita Winston Foundation, and Cultural Services, Embassy of France in the United States.
Pierrot and Colombine. c. 1887–88. Conté crayon on paper, 9 3/4 x 12 5/16" (24.8 x 31.2 cm). The Kasama Nichido Museum of Art
Related Publication
Georges Seurat: The Drawings
Jodi Hauptman. Essays by Karl Buchberg, Hubert Damisch, Jodi Hauptman, Bridget Riley, Richard Shiff, and Richard Thompson
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