George Deem

Vermeer's Easel

Date:	1999
Medium:	Oil on canvas
Size inches:	42 x 36
Size cm:	106.7 x 91.4
Signature:	Signed and dated lower right and inscribed on the reverse
Location:	Private Collection, Great Falls, Virginia

(In) Vermeer's Easel the emphasis placed on the chair, positioned for the viewer's entrance, the person who sees the painting, articulates (the) new role to be played by the post-modern artist who, in effect, becomes the spectator through his/her creative act of duplication. The empty easel looks towards the very picture in which it is situated for its new occupant, towards the very picture in which it stands; Deem's re-envisioning of Vermeer's masterpiece is the new picture. The empty chairs, then, might be read as symbols of seeing anew, and their accentuated presence juxtaposed with the empty easel in Deem's Vermeer's Easel might be interpreted as an allegory of seeing as opposed to painting or, perhaps more precisely, as an allegory of seeing that leads to painting.(Seema Srivastava, "Deem's Vermeers: A post-Modern Allegory of Seeing?," working paper presented in Professor Robert Rosenblum's graduate seminar Neo-Historicism in Late Twentieth-Century Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 18 December 2001).

 

Yale University Jonathan Edwards College Master's House

Exhibition date:	January 16 - March 16, 2003
Institution:	Yale University
Works Shown:	The Art of Painting, diptych The Art of Painting (Study) Extended Vermeer Extended Vermeer: The Woman in Blue George Washington Vermeer Love Letter, The Love Letter, The (Study) Painting Perspective Red Chair, The Signature Vermeer Detail 2002 Vermeer's Chair Vermeer's Chandelier 1986 Vermeer's Easel Vermeer's Jug Vermeer's Music Lesson with the Figures Removed Vermeer's Window Woman in Blue Woman with a Water Pitcher

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

Exhibition date:	January 26 - April 25, 2010
Institution:	Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Works Shown:	Vermeer's Easel Vermeer's Map

Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York

Exhibition date:

January 15 - February 16, 2000

Works Shown:

Seven Vermeer Corners Two Vermeer Chairs Vermeer's Concert with Two Figures Removed Vermeer's Concert with Two Figures Removed (Number 2) Vermeer's Concert with Two Figures Removed (Study) Vermeer's Easel Vermeer's Easel (Study) Vermeer's Lady Seated at a Virginal, the Lady Removed Vermeer's Lady Standing at a Virginal, Lady Removed Vermeer's Music Lesson with the Figures Removed Vermeer's Woman in Blue Removed