Belgian artist Georges Lemmen adopted the pointillist style—which used uniform dots or dabs of color to create forms—after seeing Georges Seurat’sA Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 at an exhibition in Brussels in 1887. While most artists avoided this systematic and inflexible technique for portraits, Lemmen was one of the few who successfully applied it to a psychologically intense likeness. In this depiction of his sister, Julie Fréderique Lemmen, the artist captured what his daughter described as Julie’s “biting personality” while also signaling her vulnerability through her demure pose.
Date
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62 × 51 cm (24 7/16 × 20 1/16 in.); Framed: 76.2 × 63.5 cm (30 × 25 in.)
Credit Line
A. A. McKay Fund
Reference Number
1961.42
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Richard Brettell, Post-Impressionists, Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1987), p. 47, 49 (ill).
E. Mendgen, et. al. In Perfect Harmony: Picture and Frame, 1850-1920 exh. cat. (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, 1995), fig. 173c.
The Hague, Kunstkring, Tentoonstelling van schilderijen en tekeningen van eenigen uit de ‘XX’ en uit de ‘Assocation pour l’Art’, July 1892, cat. 16.
New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Neo-Impressionism, February-April 1968, cat. 126.
New York, The Brooklyn Museum, Belgian Art 1880 - 1914, Apr. 23-June 29, 1980, p. 118, cat. 48.
Tokyo, Seibu Museum, The Impressionist Tradition, Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago, October 18–December 1, 1985, cat. 47; traveled to Kyoto, Fukuoka Art Museum, January 5–February 2, 1986; Kyoto, Municipal Museum of Art, March 4–April 13, 1986.
Princeton, University Art Museum, Neo-Impressionist Portraiture, 1991; traveled to Brussels.
Brussels, Musée d’Ixelles, Gorges Lemmen Retrospective, April 24 - July 13, 1997.
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Pointillismus, September 6-November 1997; Lausanne, Fondaton de l’Hermitage, January 23-May 1998 [Cologne Only].
Indianapolis Museum of Art, The Faces of Neo-Impressionism, June 13–September 7, 2014.
Allan Frumkin Gallery by 1961; sold to the Art Institute, 1961.
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