Seurat: Post-Impressionist pioneer

Georges Seurat, Aman-Jean, 1883, Conté crayon on paper

Georges Seurat's study of his friend the artist Aman-Jean (1858–1936) is one of the great portrait drawings of the nineteenth century. A remarkably assured work for a young artist, it was shown in the Paris Salon of 1883 shortly after Seurat's twenty-third birthday.

Seurat chose a classic profile pose for his sitter, sensitively portraying the artist with brush in hand and a facial expression of deep concentration. The conté crayon touches the paper almost everywhere, but so lightly in places that Seurat creates infinite shades, from the darkest black to the luminescent white of the paper. Aman-Jean kept the drawing, and referred to it many years later in a letter to Seurat's biographer as "a very beautiful portrait of me.”