George Deem

George Charles Deem Jr. (August 18, 1932 – August 11, 2008) was an American artist best known for reproducing famous works with deliberate alterations.

Life and career

Deem was born in Vincennes, Indiana. He left his parents' farm to attend School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A year later, in 1953, the United States Army drafted him. After serving in Germany, he returned and completed his degree.

He spent some years in Italy researching the painting styles of Renaissance painters. Deem traveled the United States speaking and exhibiting his art, but lived most of his life at 10 West 18th Street in New York's Flatiron District.

Among the artists whose work he reproduced were Caravaggio, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Winslow Homer, Andrea Mantegna, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and, especially, Johannes Vermeer, about whose style he wrote a book. During a 1993 visit to New York, Deem noted to his great-nephew, Kenneth J. Knight, Ph.D., that his favorite artist was Johannes Vermeer.

Deem died of lung cancer in Manhattan.

Selected publications

• Deem, George (1993). Art School. Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-0-8118-0414-1
• Deem, George (2004). How to Paint a Vermeer: A Painter’s History of Art. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-28509-1