Actual Size (In Progress)
| Date: | 1985
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| Medium: | Oil on canvas |
| Size inches: | 50 x 86 |
| Size cm: | 127 x 218.4
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| Signature: | |
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| Location: | Destroyed by the artist, 1996 |
One day within the first year (1979-80) of living and working here (on West 18th Street), I found a large, well-made stretcher leaning against the wall by the elevator in the entrance of the building…. I still do not know who left it there. I used the stretcher to paint "Exact Size," which was eleven paintings the exact size of original Vermeer paintings. This painting didn't work mostly because the gesso undercoat was too thin and the painting surface absorbed any coat which I applied. The painting was put away for a year at least. One day I would conceive how to handle it.
The day came when I decided I needed this size canvas for "Seven Vermeer Corners," which is very similar. This is seven Vermeer interiors, again the exact size of the originals, placed on one canvas.
(George Deem, note 2002. Seven Vermeer Corners, begun in 1996, is signed and dated 1999. The painting Actual Size, (a.k.a Exact Size) was removed from the stretcher and destroyed by the artist in 1996).
