| WorkFebruary 1964
| Image Notes
The work of a number of recent artists shows us that it is still possible to use long-established traditions with freshness, individuality, and intelligence...Sometimes the youthful traditionalist turns specifically to earlier works of art as source material but in a way utterly unlike the method by which the influence of one artist to another was transmitted in the past. We encounter the curious motif of representation of works of art in works of art: one thinks of George Deem's poetic and nostalgic translations of prints and pictures of the past. The landscape in his February 1964 is not the reflection of an actual landscape, but a painting of an old-fashioned calendar, suggesting serene joys and patriotic virtues that have long been avoided. This may be another expression of the feeling that works of art are simply objects, like all other objects, and consequently just as available as are natural forms as sources for individual artistic expression. (Allan S. Weller, The Joys and Sorrows of Recent American Art, Urbana Chicago London: University of Illinois Press, 1968: 82, pl. 91.). Weller gives the dimensions of the painting as 50 x 40 inches. The image suggests the possibility of a more vertical canvas.(Ronald Vance) On page 257, I have reproduced a photographic print of the painting February 1964 by George Deem. It was made at about that time in oils on canvas at the size 30 x 40”. It was the first of his series of calendars. At present it is owned by the artist’s agent The Allan Stone Gallery of New York, through whose permission it is reproduced. Incorporated in the painting is the artist’s reproduction of a landscape made in 1875 by George Inness (1825-1894) which is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (p.339) | Artist's Notes| ExhibitionsAllan Stone Gallery, New York |