Essential Vermeer

George Deem, 75, Artist Inspired by Master Painters, Is Dead

George Deem, a painter who admired Vermeer and the Great Masters so much that dedicated much of his own career elaborating their masterpieces, died on Aug. 11 at home in Manhattan. He was 75. Deem was admired particularly for his series of Vermeer interiors including a version of the Artist in his Studio without the painter at his easel. One of his finest works was Seven Vermeer Corners, which displays different rooms that Vermeer painted set next to one another on a single canvas.

(right) Vermeer's Easel, oil on canvas, 42x36 inches,1999

VERMEER'S "ASTRONOMER" Travels TO ATLANTA

The Louvre and the Masterpiece
The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia
October 12, 2008 - September 6, 2009

The Louvre and the Masterpiece will explore how the definition of a "masterpiece," as well as taste and connoisseurship, have changed over time. The exhibition will feature ninety-one works of art drawn from all eight of the Musée du Louvre's collection areas, spanning 4,000 years. Paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, and drawings will reflect three major themes: the changing historical and cultural definitions of a masterpiece; authenticity and connoisseurship; and the evolution of taste and scholarship. The exhibition is divided into three sections which together explore a range of thematic questions about the concept of a masterpiece. The exhibition includes Vermeer's "Astronomer." February 17, 2009 "The Card Shark" by Georges de la Tour arrives to replace Vermeer's "Astronomer."

"The Girl with a Pearl Necklace" Travels to Rome

Rembrandt to Vermeer. Civil Values in 17th century Flemish and Dutch Painting
Fondazione Roma, Museo del Corso
November 11, 2008 to February 15, 2009

Representing the “Golden Century” of Flemish and Dutch art, the exhibition focuses on the development of the genre of the domestic interior, which was dedicated to family life and reflected the innovative social context and civil values of Holland in the 17th century. The 55 masterpieces on display will enable visitors to learn about the art and culture of Flanders and Holland during their “Golden Century”.

For the first time in Italy, it will finally be possible to admire a large selection of works belonging the world’s most important collection of 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings: that of Berlin’ s Gemäldegalerie, which includes masterpieces such as Rembrandt’s The Money Changer and Vermeer’s Woman with a Pearl Necklace.

for more information click here

Upcoming Vermeer Catalogue

Vermeer: The Complete Paintings
by Walter Liedtke
October 29, 2008

Since his rediscovery in the later half of the 19th century, Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) has been one of the most admired and influential European painters. His extremely private life, his supposed use of a camera obscura, and the fact that his teacher remains unidentified have, until recently, encouraged a view of the “Sphinx of Delft” as an isolated genius shrouded in an air of mystery. Walter Liedtke’s new monograph reveals Vermeer’s life to be well-documented and places his work in the context of the Delft school and of Delft society as a whole. Vermeer’s many admirers will relish Liedtke’s exploration of subtleties of meaning and refinements of technique and style. Alongside the most historical approach to Vermeer to date, the annotated color catalogue of Vermeer’s complete paintings reveals a master whose rare sensibility may be described but not explained.

6 Vermeer's travel to Japan

Vermeer and the Delft Style
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno-koen
August 2 - December 14, 2008

Vermeer and the Delft Style features 6 rare masterpieces by Johannes Vermeer and other paintings by his contemporaries affording viewers a suggestive glance of Golden Age of Dutch Art.  There has been no occasion, where these masterpieces come together in one exhibition ever hosted in Asia and only three of the Vermeer’s have been formally exhibited.The Vermeer paintings included in the exhibition are: The Little Street, Diana and her Companions, The Girl with the Wineglass, Woman with a Lute,  Christ in the House of Martha and Mary and the recently re-attributed A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals which is rarely on public view. The exhibition also features the miniscule masterpiece View of Delft by Carel Fabritius, a splendid view of Delft by Van der Heyden and two fine De Hoogh’s.

Vermeer-related Publication

The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren
by Jonathan Lopez
September 8, 2008

Best remembered for selling a fake Vermeer to Hermann Goering during the Second World War, Han van Meegeren never admitted to creating any fakes dating from before 1937--but there have always been rumors suggesting that his career actually began much earlier than that. Drawing upon three years of archival research conducted in five nations and interviews with the descendants of Van Meegeren’s partners in crime, Jonathan Lopez reveals that Van Meegeren worked virtually his entire adult life turning out bogus old masters for a ring of art-world intriguers operating out of London and Berlin. Major dealers like Sir Joseph Duveen were stung by these forgeries, as was the great Pittsburgh banker Andrew Mellon, who bought two of Van Meegeren's fake Vermeers during the 1920s. As Koen Kleijn of De Groene Amsterdammer has remarked, “The Man Who Made Vermeer" shatters the popular image of Han van Meegeren as a lone gunman or picaresque rogue. Jonathan Lopez reveals the master forger as an arch-opportunist, a cunning liar, and a fervent sympathizer of the fascist cause from as early as 1928. Deftly reconstructing an insidious network of illicit trade in the art market's underworld, Lopez allows few reputations to emerge unscathed in this gripping and delicious book.”

Vermeer Exhibition

West Coast art lovers to see a Vermeer when the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., exhibits “A Lady Writing"

Nov. 7 through Feb. 2, 2009

West Coast art lovers will be offered a rare opportunity to see a Vermeer when the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., exhibits A Lady Writing, above, from Nov. 7 through Feb. 2, 2009. On loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the painting, one of about 35 known works by Vermeer, will come to Pasadena as part of a series of exchanges between the Norton Simon foundations and the National Gallery.

Although the Simon will offer only a single painting, it is planning a complementary series of lectures and other events.  Click here for a list of lectures

Vermeer-related Exhibition

PRIDE OF PLACE: DUTCH CITYSCAPES OF THE GOLDEN AGE
Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands
11 October 2008 - 11 January 2009

from the Mauritshuis website:
Governed by powerful burghers Dutch cities flourished in the 17th century. This engendered a veritable revolution in the art of painting. The affluent citizenry favored different subject matter than the aristocracy or the church. They fostered a new genre of painting, the cityscape, in which their towns and cities were limned with genuine pride.  This exhibition offers a survey of this special type of painting, including famous examples such as Vermeer's View of Delft.

The earliest painted Dutch views of cities are by Hendrick Vroom. At first emphasis lay on the skyline of the city with its ramparts and church towers. After 1650, the painters escort us into the city itself. They show it from up close: the canals, streets and squares, where the daily activities of the city dwellers come to life.

The painters of cityscapes were active primarily in Amsterdam, Haarlem and Delft. Only the finest paintings are being selected for this exhibition. Joining Ruisdael’s celebrated View of Haarlem are works by Johannes Vermeer, Esaias van de Velde, Jan van der Heyden, Gerrit Berckheyde, Meindert Hobbema, Aelbert Cuyp and Pieter Saenredam.

(available exclusively at
Lulu.com)

Vermeer-related publication

How to Paint Your Own Vermeer: Recapturing Materials and Methods of a Seventeenth-Century Master
(289 page)
by Jonathan Janson

Which materials and techniques did Johannes Vermeer use to create his masterpieces? Is it still possible to emulate those methods today? Contemporary American painter Jonathan Janson offers straightforward, practical advice on how to reproduce Vermeer's day-to-day working procedures as closely as possible in your own studio. Detailed explanations document each and every step, from the stretching of the canvas to the three-step method used by Vermeer and his contemporaries including indispensable historical and theoretical background regarding the art and craft of Northern seventeenth-century painters.

In the first part, Vermeer's palette, drawing, pigments, brushwork, mediums, glazing, grounds are thoroughly analyzed as they are gradually encountered during the painting process The second part contains insights into crucial stylistic components which, together, make a Vermeer a Vermeer, such as color, composition, camera obscura vision and perspective.