Seurat who died at the young age of 31 was born in Paris and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1878 and 1879. His teacher was a disciple of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Young Seurat was strongly influenced by Rembrandt and Francisco de Goya.
After a year of military service at Brest, Seurat exhibited his drawing Aman-Jean at the official Salon in 1883. Panels from his painting Bathing at Asnieres (The National Gallery, London) were refused by the Salon the next year, so Seurat and several other artists founded the Societe des Artistes Independants.
With fellow artist Paul Signac he originated the influential theory and practice of neoimpressionism. In 1884 Seurat completed Bathers at Asnières (The National Gallery, London), a scene of boys in the Seine River and the first of six large canvases that would constitute the bulk of his life's work.
His famous canvas Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte was the centerpiece of an exhibition in 1886. By then Seurat was spending his winters in Paris, drawing and producing one large painting each year, and his summers on France's northern coast. In his short life Seurat produced seven monumental paintings, 60 smaller ones, drawings, and sketchbooks. He kept his private life very secret, and not until his sudden death in Paris on March 29, 1891, did his friends learn of his mistress, who was the model for his painting Young Woman Holding a Powder Puff (1890, Courtauld Institute of Art, London).
Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1994 and Encarta 1999.
In 1889 Seurat began to live with a young model by the name of Madeleine Knobloch. This liaison was kept secret for fear of family disapproval. When Madeleine became pregnant and bore a son, christened Pierre Ceorges, Seurat became even more secretive and withdrawn, living virtually as a recluse and emerging only to take part in exhibitions. The birth of the child was kept even from Seurat's mother, who would have been deeply shocked that her brilliant, rich and handsome son had fallen for the charms of a lowly model.
Early in 1891, Madeleine was again pregnant but before the birth of the second child, a completely unexpected tragedy occurred. On Palm Sunday Seurat felt in the peak of health and was preparing work for exhibition, but by Thursday he had fallen very ill. In desperation he arrived at his mother's house with the pregnant Madeleine and the infant Pierre Georges. By the morning of Easter Sunday Seurat was dead of diphtheria.
Source: Impressionist Painters; Guy Jennings; Chancellor Press
Impressionism Gallery
