The Old Bridge, Heidelberg

Date:	c. 1954
Medium:	tempera
Size inches:	Size uncertain
Size cm:	Size uncertain
Signature:	Signature uncertain
Location:	Private Collection, Bowling Green, Kentucky

George Deem was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1953, in the summer following his first year at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His period of active military duty was from August 26, 1953 to June 16, 1955. Stationed in Heidelberg, U. S. Military Headquarters in Germany, he was assigned to the office of Military Police as a clerk typist. In Heidelberg he rented a room off base as a studio where he could paint.

October. The Vincennes Fortnightly Club was entertained by the Art department on Wednesday afternoon. ... George Deem, Jr., artist, and at present a senior at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, gave a lecture entitled "An Initiation Into 20th Century Art." He explained how the modern concept of painting had its ground in the first half of the 19th century, saying that in the 1870s the Art Academy of France was classical and headed by Ingres and David. The impressionists who broke away from the Academy were Corot, Manet, Monet and Pissarro. Seurat demolished the impressionists with his famous picture, owned by the Art Institute, depicting an island near Paris, with figures on the bank, and then came the great modernists, Cezanne, Degas, Van Gogh and Gauguin. Mr. Deem illustrated his talk with colored slides showing paintings done by the artists he discussed and closing with Braque and Picasso. His exhibit of his own paintings includes 14 pictures, whose titles are "Forest Society," "The Swamp," "Girl in Red," Femme et Chat" (Woman and Cat), "The Old Elevator," "Court House, Vincennes," "Cathedral Birds," "Trellis Woman," "The Angel," "Judy," "The Mower," "Marine Landscape," "The Old Bridge, Heidelberg," and "The Hay Rake." These will remain on exhibit at the club house for a month. (Mrs. Ruth Ashby, Society Editor, "Fortnightly's Art Section Presents Youthful Painter," Vincennes Sun-Commercial, October 18, 1957).

...my tempera painting of the Old Bridge that I did in Heidelberg while in the Army still hangs on the center wall above the television (in the house of his Aunt Estella Deem in Vincennes, Indiana). There's a Cow in Manhattan Part Six (sentence strikethrough by George Deem in the notebook manuscript).

The Vincennes Fortnightly Club, Vincennes, Indiana

Exhibition date:	October 18 - November 18, 1957
Works Shown:	Cathedral Birds Court House, Vincennes Femme et Chat (Woman and Cat) Forest Society Girl in Red Judy Marine Landscape The Angel The Hay Rake The Mower The Old Bridge, Heidelberg The Old Elevator The Swamp Trellis Woman