Grande Jatte I
Date1990
Mediumacrylic on canvas
Dimensions66 5/8 × 93 × 1 3/8 inches (169.2 × 236.2 × 3.5 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Weitzman Family.
Object number2017.1
Copyright© Murray Reich.
The images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextMurray Reich was an American artist born in New York City in 1932. He was also a Professor Emeritus of Painting at Bard College in New York, where he taught for more than 25 years. For Reich, a canvas is “a problem waiting to be solved.” Reich likened artmaking to that of exploring and investigating, and as a painter he was constantly questioning. Over his career, Reich was interested in optical color mixing and illusionistic space versus mere surface, and how each individual’s perception affects this balance.
In the 1980s–90s, Reich’s work started creating the illusion of depth by appearing to have “surface layers” with “holes” through them. In 1990–91, he made a series of paintings in which each surface layer paid tribute to a masterpiece he loved from the history of art. This painting, Grande Jatte I, is an example of Reich’s homage to his “ancestors” and a direct reference to the connections he drew between his work and pointillist master Georges Seurat, who created the systematic and “scientific” technique at the end of the 19th century. The title and imagery is a direct reference to Seurat’s best-known and largest work, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884–1886).
Subject MatterÎle de la Grande Jatte (Island of La Grande Jatte), Seine River, Paris, France
