Last Updated on February 16, 2026
This historic exhibition provides an engrossing display of Seurat’s singular approach and talent
Seurat and the Sea: Exhibitions of Georges Seurat’s (1859 – 1891) work are few and far between. Having died at the young age of 31, Seurat left a small number of works and those who have them guard them jealously. So it’s a masterstroke on the part of the Courtauld Gallery in London to have gathered together 26 of his paintings, sketches and studies – the first exhibition of his work in the UK in 30 years. Focusing the exhibition on one of Seurat’s subjects – the sea – has also been inspired.
Our perceptions of Seurat have usually been shaped by several vast canvases of Parisians enjoying life – who can forget Bathing, Asnières? – and the radical technique of painting he pioneered – often known as `pointillism’ or `Neo-Impressionism’. Following the Impressionists and fascinated by new theories on optics and colour, Seurat placed pure dots of colour beside each other directly onto the canvas, so they melded together in the viewer’s eye rather than blending them on a palette. Seurat also placed colours from opposite sides of the colour wheel next to each other. These were innovations that caused a sensation at the time.
Coming from an affluent family, Seurat was relieved of some of the financial pressures that beset other artists, like Monet, in his early life. From 1885 until 1890, he was able to take himself off for the summer to the Channel coast, where he focused all his creative energies on the sea. He painted in Grandcamp in 1885, Honfleur in 1886 and Port-en-Bessin in 1888. Moving up the coast, he based himself in Le Crotoy in 1889 and Gravelines in 1890. The result was that he painted more views of this coast than of any other type of picture in his career, and these seascapes account for half of his entire output.
This is the first exhibition dedicated to these paintings, and it is an engrossing display – not only for the works themselves, but for what they reveal about how Seurat experimented and developed his technique, or what he called his `method’. The works are arranged in chronological order, which is a real bonus for visitors. Amazingly, the complete series of paintings from his time in Port-en-Bessin and from Gravelines is shown, which is exactly how he wanted them to be viewed. It is rather moving to think that the six paintings from Port-en-Bessin are together for the first time since 1889.
In the first gallery, the influence of Monet is evident in several canvases, although with the technique Seurat adopted early. The dots in the paintings are large, short, and thick, and vigorously applied, and he also uses some criss-cross patterns. In the second gallery, the dots become more subtle and less discernible – smaller and closer together and more moulded to his subject. In all of them, Seurat’s focus is emphatically on the sea; only in a few paintings are people included, and then they are hardly a feature.
Seurat said he wanted to cleanse his eyes of the days he spent in his studio in Paris, and this he set out to do in the calm of the coast. Boats sail past a headland, a cliff rears out of the sea, a lighthouse towers over a deserted shore. Houses and ships are often seen at some distance. The dandies of Paris are left behind, and we are looking at the world at some remove, freed of the noise and bustle we bring to it. Instead, the piers, the ports, the beaches are precisely recorded, untrammelled by milling crowds.
Light fascinated Seurat, and he once said he wanted to capture it as accurately as possible, `in all its nuances’. Concentrating almost exclusively on the sea and its surroundings must have helped him do this. Experimenting with this too, he sometimes portrayed views from different angles. His renditions of the effect of light on the tangible world around him, therefore, produced a range of images: we see harbours and the sea in the pearly half-light, as seen in The Channel at Gravelines, Grand-Fort Philippe, or resplendent in full bright light and in sharper focus, in Seascape at Port-en-Bessin.
Colour plays a key role too in realising the vision; sometimes it is soft and modulated, but even then, there is a delicate richness to it. At other times its more dramatic and luminous. Seurat wasn’t afraid to move some landmarks and subjects around, either, to balance his compositions, and postcards have been handily placed beside some paintings so you can see what the subject actually looks like. Whatever the time or subject, though, Seurat appears completely in control of the materials and the technique he employs to translate what he sees into his own meditations on the world before him.
There are some wonderful surprises here. Among the finished canvases are several small oil studies and some sketches in Conte crayon. These really are wonderful and unexpected, especially since we are so used to thinking of Seurat in terms of huge canvases. The tiny Study for `The Channel of Gravelines: Petit-fort-Philipe’, is an absolute gem. But the sketches, too, like Study for the Channel of Gravelines, Evening of a large anchor, are delicate and haunting.
Seurat painted outdoors with his handy travel paint box, then took his sketches, models and paintings back to Paris, where he finished his canvases – sometimes adding to them years later – in his studio and then exhibited them. They were well received and praised for what the critics saw as their calm. There is certainly a stillness to the world Seurat gives us, and at times an uncanny sense of aloneness.
Seurat’s early death deprived the world of a dedicated and inventive artist. The 45 works he left are precious reminders of what he achieved in a short amount of time. This is a unique exhibition: don’t miss it. All of Seurat’s talent and achievements are on display here. He is thought to have sold only three of his paintings during his lifetime, and perhaps he didn’t have to. It seems that exhibiting his groundbreaking work was his main goal, and so his quest is fulfilled here, and it is our rare privilege to be part of that.
The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition
Seurat and the Sea
Courtauld Gallery
Strand
London
WC2R 0RN
+44 (0)20 3947 7777
13 February – 17 May 2026
Find out about more art, this time, at the Barbican with our review of Julia Phillips: Inside before they speak
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