George Deem, Sebastian, Signed Lithograph

Artist: George Deem
Title: Sebastian
Year: 1979
Medium: Lithograph, signed in pencil
Edition: 300
Paper Size: 22" x 30"

 

   George Deem is a leading painter among contemporary artists using the technique and the images of the old Masters. Deem encourages and expects the viewer to be aware of the original source of his subject. Their knowledge and familiarity with the subject will extenuate the viewers perception of his deliberate restyling. The trend in Deem's paintings is away from the elaborate symbolic apparatus and towards reduced, less obvious cleverly disguised symbol- ism.

    Deems' paintings are more than allegorical as they imply some warning or moral purpose for his contemporary viewers. Deem has taken to using Vermeer's images not for purely aesthetic ends alone, but to illustrate in 1979 how the meaning attached to these traditions has dropped away. What remains is ample evidence of Deems' wish to be "read" as metaphorical and even arcane through his use of the traditional. For example, Deem has used Stuart's portrait of Washington and added white face taking a deadly humorous and political stance in attacking our aesthetic and moral values.

     Deems work has, for the intellectually curious, allusions, puzzles and hidden meanings that are used to make all sorts of jokes and puns on contemporary and traditional concepts of imagery. Deem has manipulated these aspects to delight the nimble mind and has created an image of significance to survive and help secure his fame. Many artists currently using masterpieces as direct models in their work employ a blatantly contemporary technique and medium. Deem retains a stylistic interest in the painting techniques and medium of the Old Masters. Working in oil, with a dead- pan and skillful "trompe l'oeil" he exhibits great technical expertise in seemingly painting in the old manner. Born in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1932, Deem lives in New York where he has exhibited regularly since 1963 at the Allan Stone Gallery.

ONE MAN SHOWS

1974
James Goodman Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Henri Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Landau-Alexander Gallery, L.A.,
California Merida Gallery, Louisville, Ken.
Galerie Thelen, Essen, West Germany
Sneed Gallery, Rockford, Ill.

MAJOR EXHIBITIONS

1964
Dilexi Gallery, San Francisco, Calif.
Yale University Art Gallery, Conn.
Gemeente Museum, The Hague, traveling to Brussels, Berlin, and Vienna
1965
Rockford Art Association, Rockford, Ill.
Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Ill.
1969
Milwaukee Art Center, travelling to Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, and Akron Art Institute
1970
Denver Art Museum
1972
Indianapolis Museum of Art
1974
krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Ill. Indianapolis Museum of Art Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio, Tex.
Allan Stone Gallery, New York
1976
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ill.
1977
Green Mountain Gallery, New York
Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis, Mo.
1978
Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art, Univ. of kansas, Kan.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, N.C.
Wight Art Gallery, Univ. of Calif. at L.A.,
Calif. Portland Art Museum, Portland, Ore.
1979
Landau Alexander Gallery, L.A., Calif.
Allan Stone Gallery, New York
Evansville Museum of Arts & Science, Ind.
1993
Evansville Museum of arts and science; traveling to Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville.
1994
Capricorn Gallery, Bethseda, Maryland.
2000
Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York.
2001
Evansville Museum of Arts & Science, Indiana.
Las Vegas Art Museum, Nevada
2002
Pavel Zoubok, New York.

PUBLIC AND CORPORATE COLLECTIONS

Albright-knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y.
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College,
American National Bank & Trust Company, Rockford, Illinois.
Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, Arizona.
Becton Dickinson & Company, Paramus, New Jersey.
Clearly Gottlieb Steen & hamilton, New York.
Evansville Museum of Arts & Science, Indiana.
Fleet Boston Financial/ Robertson Stephens, New York.
Florida International University Art Museum, Miami.
Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City Missouri.
Houston Museum of Fine Arts
Indianapolis Museum of Art.
J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, New York
MGM/Mirage Resorts, Inc., Las Vegas Nevada, and Biloxi, Mississippi.
Museum Ludwig Donation, The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
Nutter McClennen & Fish, Boston.
Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, New York
Rockford Art Museum, Illionois.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Stifling Ludwig, Aachen, Germany.
Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York.
Wellington Management Company, Boston.