The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Summer

1891

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

(French, 1824–1898)

France, 19th century

oil on fabric

Framed: 189.5 x 270.5 x 14.6 cm (74 5/8 x 106 1/2 x 5 3/4 in.); Unframed: 149.6 x 232.4 cm (58 7/8 x 91 1/2 in.)

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade 1916.1056

Location: 222 Impressionism & Post-Impressionism

Did You Know?

Puvis de Chavannes was considered one of the foremost artists in France in the second half of the 1800, and was particularly admired for his murals. This painting is a version of a mural he painted in 1889, which was particularly difficult because the wall had a door in the middle.

Description

This painting is a smaller version of a mural on the same subject painted for the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, which has a companion mural titled Winter. A writer at the time described Summer as "filled with joy, happiness, rest, and the apotheosis of life." Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, and Pablo Picasso were among the many modernists influenced by Puvis de Chavannes’s dreamlike themes and anti-naturalistic style of simplified, flattened forms.

1891-1892
Bought from the artist by Durand-Ruel, Paris (stock number 1882), 29 October 1891.
1892
Sold to Durand-Ruel, New York (stock number 864), 5 January 1892.
1892
(Durand-Ruel, New York, NY, January 5, 1892, no. 864.)
1892
(Durand-Ruel, New York, NY, November 16, 1892 sold to Jeptha H. Wade)
1892-1916
Jeptha H. Wade [1811-1980] Cleveland, OH, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art,1916
1916-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Godet, Pierre. "Puvis de Chavannes et la Peinture d'Aujourd'hui." Art Decoratif (January, 1912): 43. Reproduced: p. 43
Warner, Langdon. "The Wade Collection." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art IV, no. 1 (January, 1917): 3-4. Mentioned: p.3; Reproduced: p. 16
"The Wade Collection." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 1 (1917): 3-12. Mentioned: p. 3; reproduced: p. 10 www.jstor.org
Underhill, Gertrude. "Some Recent Acquisitions of the Cleveland Museum of Art." Art and Archaeology VI, no. 1 (July, 1917): 41-49. Reproduced: p. 44
Whiting, Frederic Allen. "The Cleveland Museum of Art." Art and Archaeology XVI, no. 4/5 (November, 1923): 186-194. Reproduced: p. 194
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1925. Reproduced: p. 30 archive.org
Milliken, William M., "In Memorium Jeptha Homer Wade." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art XIII, no. 4. (April 1926): 76. Mentioned: p. 64; Reproduced: p. 76
Werth, Léon. Puvis de Chavannes. Paris, France: Les Éditions G. Crès & cie, 1926. Plate 19
Meryem, Jean. "La Musee de Cleveland." L'Art et les Artistes 13, no. 69 (July, 1926): 341-346. Reproduced: p. 344
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1928. Reproduced: p. 37 archive.org
Wilenski, R. H. French Painting. Boston, MA: Hale, Cushman & Flint, inc., 1931. Reproduced: p. 193, pl. 79
Milliken, William. "The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition of the Cleveland Museum of Art." ARTnews (June 13, 1936): 7-14. Mentioned: p. 13
Milliken, W. M., and P. Boswell. "Superb Art Display Marks Cleveland Museum's 20th Anniversary; With List." Art Digest 10 (July 1936): 5-22. Reproduced: p. 11
"Treasure Trove of Great Art Masterpieces." Life 15 (Sept. 20, 1943): 64-68. Reproduced: p. 68
Paintings in the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1945. Reproduced: p. 34 archive.org
Coe, Nancy. The History of the Collecting of European Paintings and Drawings in the City of Cleveland. Thesis M.A. Oberlin College, 1955. Reproduced: vol. 2, p. 253
Gilson, Etienne. Painting and Reality. New York, NY Pantheon Books, 1957. Reproduced: p. 148, Figure 55
The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 499 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 171 archive.org
Arnason, H. H. History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. New York, NY: H.N. Abrams, 1968. Reproduced: p. 60; Figure 61
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 171 archive.org
Daval, Jean Luc. Journal de l'art moderne, 1884-1914. [Genève]: Skira, 1973. Reproduced: p. 92
Puvis de Chavannes, 1824-1898. Paris: Éditions des Musées Nationaux, 1976.
Phaidon Encyclopedia of Art and Artists. Oxford, United Kingdom: Phaidon, 1978. Reproduced: p. 536
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 212 archive.org
Boucher, Marie-Christine. Catalogue des dessins et peintures de Puvis de Chavannes. Paris, France: Palais des beaux-arts de la ville de Paris, Musée du Petit Palais, 1979. Reproduced: p. 104
Van Liere, Eldon N. "Solutions and Dissolutions: The Bather in Nineteenth-century French Painting." Arts Magazine 55 (May 1980): 104. Reproduced: fig. 25
Masini, Lara Vinca. Art Nouveau. London, United Kingdom: Thames and Hudson, 1984. Figure: 195
Kiefer, Geraldine W. Alfred Stieglitz: Scientist, Photographer, and Avatar of Modernism, 1880-1913. New York, NY: Garland, 1991. Reproduced: p. 225, Figure 55
Robinson, William H. "Puvis de Chavannes 's Summer and the Symbolist Avant-garde." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art LXXVIII. (1991): 2-27. Reproduced: p. 2-27 www.jstor.org
Breuille, Jean-Philippe. L'Art du XIXe siècle: dictionnaire de peinture et de sculpture. Paris, France: Larousse, 1993. Reproduced: p. 576-577
Chong, Alan. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993. Reproduced: p. 188
Price, Aimée Brown, Genevieve Lacambre, and Jon Whiteley. Pierre Puvis De Chavannes. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Van Gogh Museum, 1994.
Ross, Novelene, and David Cateforis. Toward an American Identity: Selections from the Wichita Art Museum Collection of American Art. Wichita, KS: Wichita Art Museum, 1997. Reproduced: p. 62
Shaw, Jennifer L. "Imagining the Motherland: Puvis de Chavannes, Modernism, and the Fantasy of France." The Art Bulletin 79 (December 1997): 586-610. Reproduced: p. 586-610
Arnason, H. H., and Marla Prather. History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1998. Reproduced: p. 72, Plate 75
D' Argencourt, Louise, and Roger Diederen. The Cleveland Museum of Art: Catalogue of Paintings, Part II; European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999. Reproduced: p. 508
Lemoine, Serge. From Puvis De Chavannes to Matisse and Picasso: Toward Modern Art. Milan, Italy: Bompiani, 2002. Reproduced: p. 316-317, front cover
Werth, Margaret. The Joy of Life: The Idyllic in French Art, Circa 1900. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002. Reproduced: p. 65, Figure 46
Shaw, Jennifer Laurie. Dream States: Puvis De Chavannes, Modernism, and the Fantasy of France. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002. Reproduced: p. 167; Figure 27
Rishel, Joseph J., ed. Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse: Visions of Arcadia. Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2012. Reproduced: p. 33
Daverio, Philippe. Il secolo lungo della modernità: il museo immaginato. Milan, Italy: Rizzoli, 2012. Reproduced: p. 475
Gil, Alberto. Mediterráneo: Una Arcadia Reinventada: de Signac a Picasso. 2018. Reproduced: P. 24, fig. 4
Shields, Scott. Breaking the Rules: Paul Wonner and Theophilus Brown. New York, NY: Scala Arts Publishers, 2023. Reproduced: p. 129
Le Bacon, Céline. "Valadon et Puvis de Chavannes." In Suzanne Valadon: Un Monde à Soi," edited by Chiara Parisi, 85-94. Metz: Centre Pompidou Metz, 2023. Reproduced: p. 88, fig. 17
Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse: Visions of Arcadia. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA (organizer) (June 20-September 3, 2012).
Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008).
Verso l'Arte Moderna, da Puvis de Chavannes a Matisse e Picasso. Palazzo Grassi spa, 30124 Venice, Italy (organizer) (February 10-June 16, 2002).
Puvis de Chavannes: Public and Private Works. Van Gogh Museum (organizer) (February 25-May 29, 1994).
World's Columbian Exposition. Art Palace, Chicago, IL (1893).
35th Anniversary Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 20-September 30, 1951).
19th and 20th Century French Art and Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Loans. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 22-September 1, 1943).
French Drawings and Watercolors from French Public and Private Collections. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 6-February 15, 1942).
The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 26-October 4, 1936).
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https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1916.1056