| WorkThe Studio of Jacques-Louis David
New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut. Gift of the Estate of George Deem, 2013. Accession Number: 2013.54.133 | Image Notes
Reference Léon-Matthieu Cochereau, Interior of the Studio of David, 1814, Louvre, Paris; Edgar Degas, Edmondo and Thérèse, Duke and Duchess of Morbilli, 1867, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Gilbert Stuart, Mrs. Richard Yates, 1793, National Gallery, Washington; Jacques-Louis David, Madame Charles-Louis Trudaine, 1826, Louvre, Paris; Jacques-Louis David, Portrait of Louise Pastoret, 1826, Louvre, Paris; Camille Corot, Interrupted Reading, 1870, Art Institute of Chicago; Nicolas Bernard Lépicié, The Young Draftsman, 1772, Louvre, Paris; Henri Fantin-Latour, Still Life: Corner of a Table, 1873, Art Institute of Chicago. InThe Studio of Jacques-Louis David of 1996, the history of French painting seems to float through a painting in the Louvre by Léon-Matthieu Cochereau that recorded the master's zealous students working from a nude academic model. This, too, is rendered in one-point perspective. Now, however, David's studio is populated by figures culled from his own paintings, as well as from those of his predecessors and heirs (Lépicié, Corot, Degas) and even from a transatlantic portrait by Gilbert Stuart. (Robert Rosenblum, Introduction to How To Paint A Vermeer by George Deem, 2004). | Artist's Notes
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Written in pencil on cross bar of the stretcher: "Begun Feb.22 1996" The Studio of Jacques-Louis David, 1996. In my painting I have let David's students -- half-hidden behind their easels in Cochereau's painting -- go on a break. The model has decided to stay where he is on the posing stand. I filled the empty space of the studio with figures from other paintings, stacking them up like people sitting in bleachers. Most of them look out at the viewer. (George Deem, Unpublished Note, 28 July 2003). My painting The Studio of Jacques-Louis David (1996) quotes Léon-Matthieu Cochereau's Interior of the Studio of David (1814). To the left of the window in my painting, stretched canvases on the easels of David's students face away from the viewer. To the right, on the model stand next to the stove, a model awaits the return of the students and the master. The model (Cochereau, 1814), the young draftsman (Lépicié, 1772), and the young woman interrupted at her reading (Corot, 1870) are each self-absorbed. The other visitors to David's studio are variously aware of an arrival our side of the picture plane: Thérèse and Edmondo Morbilli (Degas, 1867), Mrs. Richard Yates (Gilbert Stuart, 1793), Madame Charles-Louis Trudaine and Louise Pastoret (both J.-L. David, 1826). The table with still life and peonies is courtesy of Henri Fantin-Latour (1873). (George Deem, unpublished text written 1 January 2004 to accompany reproduction of the painting in How To Paint A Vermeer: A Painter's History of Art, 2004). Del Sarto Canaletto Titian... has started me on a new series of paintings. The first was The Studio of Jacques Louis David, a big 70 by 58 inch painting with figures from Corot to Degas sitting about in David's studio. The second painting is The National Gallery, Washington, with figures from paintings in the collection assembled around the fountain in the rotunda of the National Gallery and with a Fantin-Latour still life up front. I am now working on The Musée D'Orsay, Paris. It too will be a 70 by 58 inch canvas, the same size as the others, a suitable museum-size format. (George Deem, letter to Patricia Williams, November 29, 1996). | ExhibitionsLas Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, Nevada Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Connecticut New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut
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Works
| WorkThe Studio of Jacques-Louis David
New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut. Gift of the Estate of George Deem, 2013. Accession Number: 2013.54.133 | Image Notes| Artist's Notes| Exhibitions |
