Vermeer's Lady Seated at a Virginal, the Lady Removed
Date:
1999
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Size inches:
20 x 18
Size cm:
50.8 x 45.7
Signature:
Signed and dated lower right and inscribed on the reverse
Location:
Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Gift of the Estate of George Deem, 2014. Accession Number 2014.02
| Image Notes
Reference
Vermeer, A Lady Seated at a Virginal, c. 1673-75. National Gallery, London.
Deem often leaves a portion of his painting incomplete, as in Vermeer's Lady Seated at a Virginal, Lady Removed, where the upper right corner is unfinished. Such a denial of illusionism is appropriate to what are, in essence, meditations on Vermeer. Deem's brushwork is also looser, a little more abstract as befits a state one step removed from the original, and, on occasion, he leaves ridges of paint around the edges as evidence of the hand (something Vermeer never would have done)...I think Deem's most successful paintings are those entirely without people. The scenes evoke the sensation of deja vu, yet there is still the shock of the unexpected. The emptiness of the rooms creates a contemporary sense of alienation -- Vermeer meets Edward Hopper. (Reagan Upshaw, "George Deem at Nancy Hoffman," Art in America, July 2000).
