Seated Woman with a Parasol (study for La Grande Jatte)
1884/85
Medium
Black Conté crayon on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
48 × 31.5 cm (18 15/16 × 12 7/16 in.)
Classification
conté crayon
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
150773
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
During 1884 and 1885, Georges Seurat was hard at work on the most ambitious painting of his career, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884, now a centerpiece of the Art Institute’s collection of 19th-century French painting. The artist’s genesis of this large canvas involved many preparatory studies, which fall primarily into two groups: small compositional sketches and color studies on wooden panels, and nuanced Conté crayon drawings that explore both the empty landscape and the shapes of specific fi...
About the Artist
Georges Seurat · 1859–1891
Georges Seurat (1859-1891) was the founder of Neo-Impressionism and the inventor of Pointillism, a revolutionary technique that transformed how artists understand and apply color. In a tragically brief career cut short at age 31, Seurat produced only seven monumental paintings, yet his systematic application of color theory fundamentally altered the direction of modern art. Born in Paris to a pro...