Oil Sketch for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884"

Georges Seurat (1884)

Munich, Kunstverein, Französische Künstler,  Sep. 1906, cat. 100; Frankfurt Kunstverein, Oct. 1906; Dresden Kunstverein, Nov. 1906; Galerie E. Arnold, Kalsruhe Kunstverein, Dec. 1906; Stuttgart Kunstverein, Jan. 1907. Paris, Galerie Jacques Rodrigues-Henriqués, Quelques oeuvres échangées jadis entre eux,  May 17-June 3, 1938. Art Institute of Chicago, Seurat: Paintings and Drawings, Jan. 16-Mar. 7, cat. 94 as Sketch for ‘La Grande Jatte’; New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Mar. 24 – May 11, 1958. Washington, National Gallery of Art, 100 European Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Leigh B. Block, May 4-June 11, 1967, cat. 21; Los  Angeles County Museum of Art, Sep. 21-Nov. 2, 1967. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, One Hundred European Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Leigh B. Block, Feb. 2-Apr. 14, 1968, cat. 22 (ill.). Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Seurat, 1859-1891, Apr. 9-Aug. 12, 1991; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sep. 24-Jan. 12, 1992, cat. 127, as Petite esquisse (Sketch with Many Figures). Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Pointillismus, Sep. 6-Nov. 1997, cat. 132; Lausanne, Fondaton de l’Hermitage, Jan. 23-May 1998 [Cologne Only]. Art Institute of Chicago, Seurat and the Making of ‘La Grande Jatte,’ June 16-Sep. 19, 2004,  cat. 48, pp. 74 (color ill.), 75, 267 (color ill.), 274, as Sketch with Many Figures (study for La Grande Jatte), 1884. Fort Worth, Tex., Kimbell Museum of Art, The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago, June 29–Nov. 2, 2008, cat. 51 (ill.). Art Institute of Chicago, Bridget Riley Drawings: From the Artist’s Studio, Sep. 17, 2022-Jan 16, 2023, not in cat.; Los Angeles,, Hammer Museum, Feb. 5-May 14, 2023; New York, Morgan Library and Museum, June 23-Oct. 8, 2023 [Chicago only].

The artist (died 1891), Paris [panneau no. 87, posthumous inventory, dated May 3, 1891, reproduced in de Hauke 1961, v.1, 80]. Possibly by descent to the artist’s mother, Ernestine Faivre Seurat (died 1899). Maximilien Luce (died 1941), Paris [Herbert 1992, 129]; by descent to his son, Frédéric Luce, Paris, 1941 [this and the following according to correspondence from Claudine Godts, Wildenstein & Co. Inc., Oct. 14, 2021; copy in curatorial object file]; sold to Wildenstein and Co., Paris, May 1955 ; transferred to Wildenstein and Co., New York, Oct. 1955; sold to Leigh B. Block (died 1987) and Mary Lasker Block (died 1981), Chicago, Nov. 1955 [according to the above and correspondence from Susan Stein, Aug. 11, 2004; copy in curatorial object file]; bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1981.

John Rewald, Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1956), p. 85 (ill.), as Study for La Grande Jatte, c. 1884. Robert Herbert, “Seurat in Chicago and New York,” The Burlington Magazine, May 1958, pp. 151, 153 (pl. 11). Henri Dorra and John Rewald, Seurat: l’oeuvre peint biographie et catalogue critique (Paris: Les Beaux –Arts, 1959), cat. 119 (ill.), as Vue générale avec groupement de personnages, étude pour ‘La Grande Jatte,’ 1884-85. C. M. de Hauke, Seurat et son oeuvre (Paris: Gründ, 1961), no. 128 (ill.), as Petite esquisse. André Chastel and Fiorella Minervino, L’opera completa di Seurat (Milano: Rizzoli, 1972), ill. 128, pl. 19A, as Gruppi di figure alla ‘Grande Jatte.’ The Burlington Magazine 976, v. 76 (July 1984), p. 464 (ill. 88). Richard Brettell, French Impressionists (Chicago, 1987), pp. 89, 91 (ill.), 119. James Wood, ed., Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago 2000), p. 78 (ill.), as Oil Sketch for La Grande Jatte, 1884. The Age of Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago (New Haven and London, 2008), cat. 51, pp. 112-13 (ill.).