A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884
Georges Seurat (French, 1859–1891)
1884–86, border added 1888–89
View the original$26
Type
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Materials & printing
Archival matte paper, 189 g/m² (10.3 mil), sourced from Japan, printed with multicolor water-based inkjet so every brushstroke stays crisp. Framed prints arrive ready to hang in a .75″ ayous-wood frame with an acrylite front. Sized to standard frames by cropping, never stretching — at most about 3% comes off one edge, which isn’t noticeable on most pieces, and we only offer a size when it stays that small.
Shipping & returns
Made to order and delivered in 5–8 business days (2–4 to print, 3–4 in transit). US shipping only for now. Because each print is made for your order, all sales are final — but if it arrives damaged or defective, send us a photo within 14 days and we’ll replace it free. Full policy.
Why is it this affordable?
A thin, flat margin on every piece — just enough to keep the store running. Most of what you pay is the print itself. We only sell sizes that reproduce at full quality, and we don’t mark up the large sizes the way most shops do.
About this work
In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ferris’s best friend Cameron Frye intensely studies this nearly ten-foot-wide painting during a scene set at the Art Institute. Featuring people of every age and social class on the banks of the River Seine, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 has captivated visitors ever since its arrival at the museum in 1924.
If we, like Cameron, come closer to the painting, figures and forms dissolve into dots and dashes of complementary colors laid side by side, characteristic of Seurat’s pointillist technique. Many smaller painted and drawn sketches and several larger canvases, in which Seurat laid out the parameters for the landscape and figures, led up to this majestically composed scene. Seurat returned to the work two years after its start date, amplifying the silhouettes of some figures and adding others. Some of these, like the monkey on the leash, seem so integral to the final composition that it is hard to imagine them as add-ons, but others, like the man carrying a rolled newspaper in the furthest distance, are barely noticeable. To the artist, however, every decision was essential to his aim of making a painting of modern life equivalent to a classical Greek frieze.
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 207.5 × 308.1 cm (81 3/4 × 121 1/4 in.)
Museum record · 2 owners · 15 exhibitions
Provenance
- By descent to Mme. Seurat, the artist’s mother (died 1899), Paris, 1891; by descent to Emile Seurat, the artist’s brother; sold for 800 francs to Casimir Brû, Paris, 1900; given by him to his daughter, Lucie, Paris, 1900.
- Lucie Brû Cousturier and Edmond Cousturier, Paris; sold for $20,000 possibly through Charles Vildrac, Paris to Frederic Clay and Helen Birch Bartlett, Chicago, 1924; given to the Art Institute, 1926.
Exhibitions
- Paris, Maison Dorée, 1, rue Laffitte, VIIIème Exposition de peinture, May 15–June 15, 1886.
- Paris, Rue des Tuileries, IIème Exposition de la Société des Artistes Indépendants, August 21–September 21, 1886.
- Brussels, Musée de l’Art Modern, IVe exposition annuelle de XX, February, 1887.
- Paris, Pavillon de la Ville de Paris, VIIIème Exposition de la Société des Artistes Indépendants, March 19–April 27, 1892.
- Paris, 23 Boulevard des Italiens, Exposition de La Revue Blanche, Georges Seurat: Oeuvres peintes et dessinées, March 19–April 5, 1900.
- Paris, Grandes Serres de la Ville de Paris (serre “B” de la Champs de la Reine, Aval-Alma), 21me Exposition de la Société des Artistes Indépendants. Éxposition Rétrospective Georges Seurat (1859-1891), 1905.
- Paris, Galeries Bernheim-Jeune et Cie, Georges Seurat (1859-1891), December 14, 1908–January 9, 1909.
- Paris, Galeries Bernheim-Jeune, Exposition Georges Seurat, January 15–31, 1920.
- Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Exhibition of Modern French Paintings from the Birch-Bartlett Collection, April–September, 1925, checklist.
- Boston Art Club, Birch-Bartlett Collection of Modern French Paintings, December 9-16, 1925, checklist.
- Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–November 1, 1933.
- Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–November 1, 1934.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Art of the United Nations, November 16, 1944–January 1, 1945, no cat. no. Art Institute of Chicago, Seurat: Paintings and Drawings, January 16–March 7, 1958, traveled to New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Seurat: Paintings and Drawings, March 24–May 11, 1958.
- Art Institute of Chicago, The Art of the Edge: European Frames 1300-1900, October 17–December 14, 1986, not included in the catalogue.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago’s Dream, A World’s Treasure: The Art Institute of Chicago 1893-1993, November 1–January 9, 1994, no cat. no. Art Institute of Chicago, Seurat and the Making of ‘La Grande Jatte,’ June 16-September 19, 2004.
