
Joe Fig
It’s not often that art lovers have the chance to walk through a room full of paintings by the great Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. After all, there are only about 35 of his pieces still in existence, and they seldom travel. But if you didn’t make it to the exhibition of his work held last year at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, you may find that a show opening Sunday, Nov. 17, at the Sarasota Art Museum is the next best thing.
Artist Joe Fig’s Contemplating Vermeer gives visitors a glimpse into the world of the famous 17th-century artist while adding a twist: Each work depicts real people caught in the act of observing the originals at the Rijksmuseum show.
Fig, who serves as chair of the fine arts department and visual studies program at Ringling College of Art and Design, has been working on his Contemplation series, focused on other artists’ shows, for about seven years. He calls it a “natural progression from my prior work, which focused on artists and their studios. I had done paintings before of an artist contemplating his work, but seeing the work in the studio is very different from seeing it out in public. So I started looking at how people look at artwork in public. I wasn’t looking at people who were taking selfies and moving on, but really at the art patrons who appreciate and take time with the work. It’s that deep looking that I appreciate.”
Fig was lucky enough to snag tickets to the Amsterdam show, which were about as rare as gold dust, and he spent his time there not only appreciating the works themselves but photographing people viewing them. When he returned to his studio, he says, he spent time “moving the people around and adjusting them and their scale, trying to create a rhythm and flow. I look at this series as similar to landscape painting. There’s a horizon line, and you work with what’s above it and what’s below it. It’s really all about composition.”
Working in Photoshop, he shifts figures around, projecting them onto the wall of his studio and moving the projector until it feels just right. He works on wood panels, cutting them, stretching the canvas and then building the frames before beginning to paint, using oil on linen.
Fig says he doesn’t normally interact with the visitors he photographs. “I’m there as an observer,” he says. “I want to watch their behavior and catch them in their natural state—a bit like at a zoo.”

Fig’s painting of Vermeer’s Woman With a Pearl Necklace
The Sarasota Art Museum show features 16 paintings, depicting a total of 18 Vermeer images. Fig worked with the museum’s senior curator, Rangsook Yoon, to create the right layout and flow for the exhibition, which is on display until next April. The sizes of the paintings vary, but they’re fairly compact, some as small as 7 inches by 9 inches, which means that making the details accurate is a painstaking task. “An extra inch or half inch makes a difference to me,” says Fig.
“The challenge with the Vermeers is that they’re so small,” he continues. “Within my paintings some of the faces are even smaller than a pencil eraser, so it’s challenging to make them convincing. I hear people talking about the detail or how tiny things are, so I just hope they appreciate the work that went into it and the thought and the composition.”
When Fig sees people looking at his paintings, which show other people looking at paintings, he admits, “It’s pretty meta.”
For more information about Contemplating Vermeer, visit sarasotaartmuseum.org.