Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 16

George Deem
George Deem Appropriation Oil Painting Still Life, fruits, Grapes, Pomegranates

1965

$3,000
£2,267.63
€2,605.91
CA$4,177.48
A$4,647.28
CHF 2,436.16
MX$56,788.59
NOK 31,021.47
SEK 29,202.42
DKK 19,452.11
Shipping
Retrieving quote...
The 1stDibs Promise:
Authenticity Guarantee,
Money-Back Guarantee,
24-Hour Cancellation

About the Item

George Deem (American, 1932-2008) Oil painting on wood board Depicting a still life arrangement with grapes, pears, and a pomegranate alongside a white ceramic pitcher and wine glasses. (after Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin) Hand signed on the verso with a dedication and dated 1965. Presented in a gold painted rectangular wooden frame. Dimensions: 16.5 X 22.5 X 1.25 in. Work Size: 13.25 x 19.25 in. George Charles Deem Jr. (August 18, 1932 – August 11, 2008) was an American artist best known for reproducing vivid re-workings of classic images from art history. All artists rework the art of the past, at times imitating, at times extending, and at times rejecting the work of artists they admire. Deem moved the process of homage and change into uncharted territory. Art historian Robert Rosenblum has called Deem's unconventional thematic choices "free-flowing [fantasy] about the facts and fictions of art history." Deem was born in Vincennes, Indiana where he grew up and often worked alongside his cantaloupe-farmer father. He left his parents' farm to attend School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A year later, in 1953, the United States Army drafted him. After serving in Germany, he returned and completed his degree. During his two years of service in Germany, he visited museums in Florence, Venice, Paris and London and saw their remarkable art collections. In 1955, Deem returned to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and studied with Paul Wieghardt, who also taught Leon Golub Robert Indiana and Claes Oldenburg. In 1958, Deem moved to New York City where he subsequently exhibited with artists like Larry Rivers. He spent some years in Italy researching the painting styles of Renaissance painters. Deem traveled the United States speaking and exhibiting his art, but lived most of his life at 10 West 18th Street in New York's Flatiron District. Among the artists whose work he reproduced were Caravaggio, Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Winslow Homer, Andrea Mantegna, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and, especially, Johannes Vermeer, about whose style he wrote a book. During a 1993 visit to New York, Deem noted to his great-nephew, Kenneth J. Knight, Ph.D., that his favorite artist was Johannes Vermeer. As an early postmodern artist, George Deem examined art as a construct and challenged art historical authority. Best known for reinterpreting iconic paintings by artists such as Courbet, Goya, Corot and Vermeer, Deem also produced a large body of paintings and works on paper that present text as subject matter. These calligraphic blocks of writing are tightly composed and purposefully painted. Although the style of script suggests a copy of a historical document or an important letter, the writing is in fact indecipherable. The illegible texts are scribbled, blocked or blurred, concealing their meaning as a way to draw attention to the immeasurable meaning of art. Other works in the exhibition feature Deem's playful quotations of famous art historical paintings. Using visual devices such as repetition, erasure and obfuscation, Deem highlights the formal qualities of his own interpretation in relation to the original. He rejects the assumption that icons must remain fixed and immutable. By embracing their manipulation, Deem asserts his fascination with what constitutes the meaning of images. Deem's work has proved difficult to pin down. He has been classified as a Pop art artist, a Figurative Realist, a Deconstructionist, a Proto Post Modernist, a Post-Modernist, and even as a Post-Post-Modernist. His fragmentation and re-blending of art history has been called quotation, paraphrase, collage, montage, and appropriation. Although he began his New York career during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism, his paintings seem to have affinities with work by "appropriation" artists a generation or so younger, including Sherrie Levine, Yasumasa Morimura, and Cindy Sherman.His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Menil Collection, Houston, the Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain in Strasbourg, France, the Denver Art Museum, Colorado and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana, among others. His work is in public collections such as the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana, and others. Deem wrote three books, ArtSchool(1993), How to Paint A Vermeer: A Painter's History of Art (2004), and Let George Do It (2009). "The artist George Deem had a unique relationship to and vision of the masterpieces of the past, especially the landmarks of Western painting that date from the Renaissance to the modern era. As Deem himself acknowledged, his abiding interest was in the two quintessential characteristics of Western art: first, the use of oil paint as a medium; and second, the development of a convincing system of perspective. From Raphael to Ed Ruscha, from Watteau to Whistler, from Bingham to the Bauhaus, Deem meticulously reconstructed and reinterpreted the art of the past with insight, originality, and wit … In his analysis and interpretation of works such as these, Deem made his own, important contribution to the history of art." David Dearinger, George Deem: The Art of Art History, Boston: The Boston Athenaeum, 2012. Deem died of lung cancer in Manhattan in 2008. He was included in the show: A Life of Discovery: Works from the Allan Stone Collection: Alfred Leslie, Arshile Gorky, Barton Lidice Benes, Bernard Langlais, Don Nice, Gaston Lachaise, George Deem, John Chamberlain, John Vickery, Joseph Cornell, Peter Dean, Peter Gee, Richard Estes, Wayne Thiebaud, Willem de Kooning
  • Creator:
    George Deem (1932 - 2008, American)
  • Creation Year:
    1965
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 16.5 in (41.91 cm)Width: 22.5 in (57.15 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    frame with light wear.
  • Gallery Location:
    Surfside, FL
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU38215928062

More From This Seller

View All
Seymour Remenick Still Life Table Scape Oil Painting with Bottle and Fruit
By Seymour Remenick
Located in Surfside, FL
Frame measures 13.75 X 14.75, board measures 11 X 12 inches Seymour Remenick (1923-1999) American; Philadelphia, PA. Oil on canvas painting Folk Singers and musicians.Seymour Remeni...
Category

Mid-20th Century American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Post Impressionist Oil Painting Still Life with Fruit William Meyerowitz WPA Art
By William Meyerowitz
Located in Surfside, FL
William Meyerowitz (1887 - 1981) Oil painting on canvas Depicting a still life scene with fruit bowl, bananas, flowers and quilt. Post Impressionist oil painting. Hand signed low...
Category

1930s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Fruit Still Life Oil Painting Betsy Podlach American Post Feminist Modernist Art
By Betsy Podlach
Located in Surfside, FL
Betsy Podlach (American, born 1964.) Still life with Fruit and Glass Bottle Framed it measures 26.5 X 21.5 Canvas is 21.5 X 16.5 Betsy Podlach graduated from Harvard, cum laude, (she studied at Harvard with Alfred Decreido and William Reimann as well as Carlos Fuentes continuing her studies at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture, Ms. Podlach was awarded an art fellowship and residency at The International School of Art in Umbria, Italy. Betsy Podlach is an American painter who considers the Italian Venetians and the american abstract expressionist painters her mentors. The two painters she is most inspired by are Titian and Jackson Pollock, Both use the picture plane and abstraction and space, light, movement and form to communicate a physicality built entirely on the principals of painting, in the “classical” sense of a flat plane and lines, color, shape, space and light applied to that flat surface to create magic – light, space, form, emotion, force, movement, the physical and the spiritual. She describes her work as a figurative version of abstract expressionism. She was influenced by many of the abstract expressionists from the NY school...
Category

1990s American Impressionist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Still Life Tabletop with Fruit
By George Chemeche
Located in Surfside, FL
This is a bright, colorful oil painting of a table top with fruit. Banana, Pomegranate and glass of water. George Chemeche was born in Israel in 1934 and studied at the Avni Art School in Tel Aviv and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. this painter and printmaker's sensual and romantic yet rationally conceived screen prints featuring plants and flowers are associated with the PATTERN & DECORATION movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. His style is non-minimalist, sensuous, romantic, rational and decorative. it runs counter to the modernist taboo against a decorative quality in art. Though pattern painting's roots are in modern art, it contradicts some of its basic tenets as it attempts to assimilate aspects of Western and non-Western culture not previously accepted into the realm of high art. In Chemeche´s work, we can see how chosen motifs are repeated in order to cover a surface in a uniform way. The results often have a painterly feel, but remain systematic. The intention is to make a high-art statement within a contemporary context by referring to, and using what to many still remains within the world of non-art. Pattern painting, unlike abstractionism, has structure. It also has content as it refers to patterns in the real world. Usually, patterning intentionally acknowledges the decorative function of art, reconciling both the decorative and the meaningful. INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS: Goldman Art Gallery, Haifa, Israel Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv, "Six Artists" Biv Gallery, New York, "Chelsea Artists" Makler Gallery, Philadelphia, Pa. "FJ.A.C.," Petit Palais Paris Galerie Naire, Paris Weintraub Gallery, New York, Print Show Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York Alexandra Monett Gallery, Brussels Givon Art GaJIery, Tel Aviv South Houston Gallery, New York Ray Landis Gallery, East Brunswick, New Jersey Gala Gallery, Key Biscayne, Florida Art Asia Gallery, Cambridge, Mass. Bertha Urdang Gallery, New York Selected Artists Gallery, New York Mabat Art Gallery, Tel Aviv Goldman Art Gallery, Haifa, Israel OHana Gallery, London "Six Artists", Modern Art Gallery, Old Jaffa Modern Art Gallery, Old Jaffa The Autumn Exhibition, Tel Aviv Museum Dugith Art Gallery, Tel Aviv Hadassa "K" Klachkin Art Gallery, Tel Aviv Rina Art Gallery, Jerusalem The Museum of Modern Art, Haifa Chemerinsky Art Gallery, Tel Aviv Galerie Transposition, Paris Collective Exhibitions "Young Artists", Tel Aviv Museum Salon de La Jeune Peinture, Musee d'art Moderne, Paris A well listed Painter...
Category

1960s Expressionist Still-life Paintings

Materials

Oil

Oil Painting Still Life Fruit Bowl Polly Thayer Boston Modernist Woman Artist
Located in Surfside, FL
Polly Thayer Starr (1904-2006) Oil Painting Still Life Fruit Bowl Dimensions: Frame: 12.5" X 15.5", Image: 8.5" X 11.5" Polly Thayer (Starr) (1...
Category

20th Century American Modern Still-life Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

American Impressionist Fruits Oil Painting Vivid Apples and Grapes
By William Schultz
Located in Surfside, FL
William J. Schultz, American (1919 - 2005) William J. "Bill" Schultz had been a renowned American Impressionist artist and teacher for over sixty-five years. Co-Founder, and Director of the AIS had inspired numerous professional artists and teachers through his teaching. He also was a Master Pastelist in the Pastel Society of America and had won many awards for his oil and pastel paintings. Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1919, he died in Vero Beach, Florida in 2005. He served in the Army in World War II including duty in Europe. He was discharged in 1946 with rank of First Sergeant. Schultz began his art studies with Martin C. Hoy, a fine artist and student of Robert Henri and William M. Chase. He graduated from The Vesper George School Of Art in Boston, Massachusetts in 1949. He then studied under National Academicians Jerry Farnsworth, Ivan Olinsky (a student of John Singer Sargent) and Robert Brackman. Winner of many awards for oil and pastel works. Was a noted portrait artist. He was a founding Director of the American Impressionist Society and an award winning member of the Pastel Society Of America. He studied under notable National Academicians Robert Brachman, Ivan Olinsky and Jerry Farnsworth. Schultz opened his own art studio and school in Lenox, Massachusetts and taught impressionist painting to hundreds of students, some of whom are now nationally recognized themselves. After 25 years at that location Schultz and his wife moved to Vero Beach, Florida where he continued to teach, as well as provide lectures and exhibitions around the country. Illustrated articles about Schultz and his work have appeared in "American Artist", "Southwest Profiles", "Artists Of Florida" and other periodicals. For a short time he studied alongside Norman Rockwell at a studio in Stockbridge, Massachusetts where Rockwell had established the base for his illustration work. Schultz was the proud possessor of an autographed sketch of himself that Norman Rockwell had created and was signed by Rockwell. Schultz's art has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Boston, New York City, Sante Fe, and numerous Florida locations...
Category

20th Century American Impressionist Interior Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

You May Also Like

Still life with fruits, pears strawberries, grapes and peaches, 20th century
Located in London, GB
George Crisp (1875–1916) was a British still-life painter renowned for his meticulous depictions of fruit, flowers, and natural subjects. Active primarily...
Category

Early 20th Century Still-life Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American Oil Painting Still Life of Hanging Fruit and Grapes
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American still life oil painting of hanging fruit and grapes. Oil on board. Framed
Category

Late 19th Century American Realist Still-life Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

B. Haynes - 1918 Oil, Still Life with Grapes and Pears
Located in Corsham, GB
Signed faintly and dated '1918' to the lower right-hand corner. Presented in a gilt-effect frame. On canvas on stretchers.
Category

20th Century Still-life Paintings

Materials

Oil

1974 oil painting still life of squashes and grapes by British George Weissbort
By George Weissbort
Located in Petworth, West Sussex
George Weissbort (Belgian / British, 1928 – 2013) A SQUASH, A BUNCH OF GRAPES AND A GLASS OF WINE Oil on canvasboard 18.1/8 x 22 in. (46 x 55.7 cm.) George Weissbort was born in ...
Category

Mid-20th Century Academic Still-life Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

H. Reidl - Early 20th Century Oil, Fruit And Wine Still Life
Located in Corsham, GB
A striking early 20th Century still life of exotic fruit and a pitcher of wine with a full glass. The artist has signed to the lower left corner and the painting has been handsomely ...
Category

20th Century Still-life Paintings

Materials

Oil

19th Century still life oil painting of apples, grapes & other fruit
By Oliver Clare
Located in Nr Broadway, Worcestershire
Oliver Clare British, (1853-1927) Still Life of Apples, Grapes & Other Fruit Oil on canvas, signed Image size: 17.5 inches x 13.5 inches Size including frame: 23.5 inches x 19.5 inches A lovely still life painting of fruit by Oliver Clare. Apples, black grapes and plums can be seen together with a strawberry and gooseberries. The fruit is shown lying amongst foliage and trailing ivy on a woodland bank. Oliver Clare was born in Birmingham in 1853, the son of the flower artist George Clare (1839-1890) and his wife Elizabeth Bowen. His brother Vincent Clare (1856-1917) also became an artist and both would have received tuition from their father who influenced their style and subject matter. At the age of 18 he enlisted as a soldier in the Kings Own regiment, but gave this up to become a full time artist. Like his father, Clare specialised in still life paintings, containing fruit and garden flowers, often on mossy banks. Sometime after 1871, he moved to London where he married Emma Mary Webb...
Category

19th Century Victorian Still-life Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil