The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 28, 2024

At the Concert Parisien

At the Concert Parisien

1887–88
(French, 1859–1891)
Sheet: 31.4 x 23.6 cm (12 3/8 x 9 5/16 in.)
Catalogue raisonné: Hauke 687
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Despite Georges Seurat's brief lifespan, he created a large number of drawings, working almost exclusively with the waxy Conté crayon and textured paper used for this sheet.

Description

Café-concerts were popular places of entertainment for the middle classes in Paris during the late 1800s and usually featured singers or other forms of vaudeville entertainers. Georges Seurat created eight drawings depicting café-concerts, some showing known establishments. This drawing has an innovative viewpoint, in which we peer through the bowler hats of male viewers listening to a female singer on stage. Seurat typically used a black crayon manufactured by the Conté company, and its waxy quality allowed him to exploit the texture of paper to striking effect.
  • 1888-1891
    Studio of the artist [1859-1891], Paris
    by 1926
    (Galerie Hessel, Paris)
    after 1926-by 1937
    (Van Diemen-Lilienfeld Galleries, New York, NY)
    after 1937-by 1944
    (Buchholz Gallery, New York, NY)
    by 1944-1958
    Alexander Bing [1879-1959], New York, NY
    1958
    (César de Hauke, Paris, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1958-
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Trente ans d'art indépendant, 1884-1914. Exh. Cat. Paris: Société des artistes indépendants, 1926. Mentioned: p. 203, no. 3323
    Seurat: His Drawings. Exh. Cat. New York: Buchholz Gallery, 1947. Mentioned: no. 26
    Seligman, Germain. The Drawings of Georges Seurat. New York: Curt Valentin, 1947. Mentioned: p. 84, no. 57; Reproduced: pl. XLV
    Cleveland Museum of Art, “Recent Acquisitions Press Release,” July 20, 1959, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art, “Recent Acquisitions Press Release,” July 24, 1959, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org
    Hauke, César M de. Seurat et son oeuvre. 2 vols. Paris: Gründ, 1961. Mentioned: vol. 2, p. 272, no. 687; Reproduced: p. 273
    Herbert, Robert L. Seurat's Drawings. New York: Shorewood, 1962. Mentioned: pp. 141-42, 185, no. 124; Reproduced: p. 142
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 180 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 180 archive.org
    Rubin, J.H. "Seurat and Theory: The Near-Identical Drawings of the Café-Concert." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6, no. 76 (October 1970): 237-46. Mentioned: p. 246 n. 2
    Chastel, André. L'opera completa di Seurat. Milan: Rizzoli, 1972. Mentioned: p. 115; Reproduced: p. 114
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 223 archive.org
    Breitman, Ellen. Art and the Stage. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1981. Mentioned: pp. 57-59; Reproduced: p. 57
    Webb, Sheila. Paper: The Continuous Thread. Exh. Cat. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art. 1982. Mentioned: pp. 22, 66, cat. no. 8; Reproduced: p. 22
    O'Toole, Judith Hansen. "Henri-Gabriel Ibels and Georges Seurat: An Attribution Confirmed." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 69, no. 7 (September 1982): 236-42. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 236 www.jstor.org
    Franz, Erich and Bernd Growe. Georges Seurat: Zeichnungen. Exh. Cat. Bielefeld: Kunsthalle Bielefeld, 1983. Mentioned: pp. 87, 193, 194, no. 82; Reproduced: pl. 82
    Clark, T.J. The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers. New York: Knopf, 1984. Reproduced: p. 215
    Thomson, Richard. Seurat. Oxford: Phaidon, 1985. Mentioned: p. 197
    Katzive, David H. Fringe Patterns: Six Contemporary Works with Scientific or Metaphoric Ties to the 1887 Michelson-Morley Experiment. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, 1987. Reproduced: p. 7
    Miller, Michael J. Drawing: A Glossary of Materials, Selections from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1987. Reproduced: n.p.
    Lebensztejn, Jean-Claude. Chahut. Paris: Hazan, 1989. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 140
    Madeleine-Perdrillat, Alain. Seurat. New York: Rizzoli, 1990. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 123
    Tinterow, Gary. “The Café-Concert, 1886–1888.” In Georges Seurat, 1859-1891, edited by Robert L. Herbert. Exh. Cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 302, no. 197
    Zimmerman, Michael F. Seurat and the Art Theory of His Time. Antwerp: Mercator, 1991. Mentioned: pp. 366-68, 372; Reproduced: p. 372
    Coven, Jeffrey. Baudelaire's Voyages: The Poet and His Painters. Exh. Cat. Huntington, NY: Heckscher Museum, 1993. Mentioned: p. 86; Reproduced: p. 85
    Hammacher, A.M. Silhouette of Seurat. Otterlo: Kröller-Müller Museum, 1994. Reproduced: p. 58
    DeGrazia, Diane, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000. Mentioned: pp. 8, 138-39, 291; Reproduced: p. 139
    Herbert, Robert L. Seurat: Drawings and Paintings. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001. Mentioned: pp. 113-15; Reproduced: p. 114
    Stuckey, Charles. "I mattini sulla Senna di Monet." In Monet, la Senna le ninfee: Il grande fiume e il nuovo secolo, edited by Marco Goldin, 119-22. Exh. Cat. Brescia: Museo di Santa Giulia, 2004. Reproduced: p. 122
    Jodi Hauptman, ed. Georges Seurat: The Drawings. Exh. Cat. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2007. Mentioned: pp. 180-81, 254; Reproduced: p. 237, no. 128
    McCaughey, Patrick. "The Dark Side of Georges Seurat." Art in America (March 2008): 138-143. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 142
    Getlein, Mark. Living with Art. 8th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2008. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 158
    Prendeville, Brendan. "Seurat and the Act of Sensing: Perception as Artifact." In Seurat Re-Viewed, edited by Paul Smith, 149-62. College Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. Mentioned: p. 158; Reproduced: p. 159
    Krčma, Ed. "Film, Drawing and the Body." In Tacita Dean: Film, edited by Nicholas Cullinan. Exh. Cat. London: Tate Modern, 2012. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 91
    Foa, Michelle. Georges Seurat: The Art of Vision. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015. Mentioned: p. 192; Reproduced: p. 193
    Thomson, Richard. "Seurat's Circus Sideshow: A Parade of Paradoxes." In Seurat's Circus Sideshow, edited by Richard Thomson, 15-106. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2017. Mentioned: pp. 21, 77, 79-80, 130, Reproduced: p. 81
    “Creativity in Action," Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 60, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 26. Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 26.
  • Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-April 30, 2023).
    Seurat’s Circus Sideshow. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (February 17-May 29, 2017).
    Georges Seurat: The Drawings. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (organizer) (October 23, 2007-January 7, 2008).
    Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).
    French Drawings from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 13, 1994-March 12, 1995).
    Georges Seurat, 1859-1891. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (September 24, 1991-January 12, 1992).
    Georges Seurat: Zeichnungen. Kunsthalle Bielefeld, D-33602 Bielefeld, Germany (organizer) (October 30-December 25, 1983); Kunsthaus Zürich, CH-8024 Zürich, Switzerland (March 27-May 15, 1984).
    National Schools of Style. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 14-September 18, 1983).
    Paper: The Continuous Thread. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 31-October 24, 1982).
    Art and the Stage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 22-August 16, 1981).
    Seventeenth-, Eighteenth-, and Early Nineteenth-Century Genre and French Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 31-August 19, 1979).
    Possibly Exposition posthume Seurat. La Revue Blanche, Paris (1892). [according to inscription on old backing].
    Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 11-October 21, 1968).
    French Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 16, 1965-February 16, 1966).
    19th and 20th Century Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 19-March 24, 1965).
    Aspects of Drawing. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 10-April 2, 1961).
    Seurat: His Drawings. Buchholz Gallery, New York (March 4 - 29, 1947).
    Exhibition of Drawings of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. American-British Art Center, New York (January 5 - 22, 1944).
    Van Diemen-Lilienfeld Galleries, New York (1937).
    Possibly Les dessins de Georges Seurat 1859-1891), Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (November 29 - December 24, 1926). [according to inscription on old backing].
  • {{cite web|title=At the Concert Parisien|url=false|author=Georges Seurat|year=1887–88|access-date=28 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1958.344