Allbritton Lecture To Focus On Impressionist Seurat

by Julie Campbell Carlson

The impressionist artist Georges Seurat will be the focus of this year's Allbritton Art Lecture at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 6, in room 149 at Baylor University's Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center. Dr. Gloria Groom, the David and Mary Winton Green Curator of European Painting at the Art Institute of Chicago, will discuss Seurat's best-known painting - Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte - and last year's major exhibition. The lecture is free and open to the public.
"Gloria Groom is an interesting and animated speaker," said Dr. Karen Pope, lecturer in the department of art. "She will talk about one of the greatest paintings of the 19th century, which is very familiar to art students and the general public."
Seurat's painting, owned by the Art Institute of Chicago, was the focus of an immense exhibition last year. The painting was a revelation in it day and seemed to correct the loose brushwork, indistinct drawing and overall casualness that had made impressionists' works offensive to conservative critics and risky to collectors. Seurat's now-famous dots and apparently separated colors immediately triggered a movement in painting.
Groom, who received her doctorate from the University of Texas, was the curator for the exhibition. She also served as curator for the exhibitions "Beyond the Easel: Decorative Painting by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis and Roussel, 1890-1930" and "Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman," both of which were held at the Art Institute of Chicago and is the author of "Edouard Vuillard: Painter-Decorator, Patrons and Projects, 1892-1912."
The Allbritton Art Institute was established within Baylor's art department in 1998 by Mr. and Mrs. Joe Allbritton. The Institute promotes the appreciation and comprehensive study of the artists and art movements of the 19th and 20th centuries with special emphasis on the movements of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.
For more information, call 710-1867.