Pointillism! Sally Hazelet Drummond

It may not be something that you have thought about art historically, but believe me, Pointillism—the brilliant Neo-Impressionist painting technique of the late 1800s—did not die with Paul Signac (1863–1935). From the mid-1900s to contemporary art, artists from all over the world continue to explore the principles of Pointillism. Recently, I was very pleased to learn more about the painting of the fabulous Sally Hazelet Drummond, a fellow Illinoisian. 

Sally Hazelet Drummond (1924–2017, United States), Hummingbird, 1961. Oil on canvas, 12" x 12" (30.4 x 30.4 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2025 Artist or Estate of Artist. (MOMA-P2759)

Drummond emphasized that her paintings were expressions of radiant light, composed of color with no lines, shapes, background, foreground, top, or bottom. She insisted that her paintings were meant to be contemplations on light reflected with color and value. Drummond's lifelong interest in Buddhism and its emphasis on meditation may have inspired this reflective quality of her paintings. 

Hummingbird is composed of a meticulously laid down field of dots in related hues of blood red and oxidized maroon. The dots cover the surface of the painting and coalesce in a dark center that actually does seem to retreat from the viewer. Drummond adapted Georges Seurat’s (1859–1891) technique of Pointillism, a process of applying small, distinct dots of pure color to a canvas to form an overall image. She once likened works like this to “a humming, a drone, emanating from somewhere, a unified field, pulsing, energetic” (via Buffalo AKG Art Museum).

In the late 1800s, out of the somewhat limiting canon of Impressionism (i.e., capturing the effects of changing light on color of an object), Post-Impressionism developed to reinvest the subject matter with importance rather than just the impression of light on it. Neo-Impressionism was one strain of Post-Impressionism that involved a younger group of artists who sought to unite the technical emphasis on color and light of Impressionism with a vision grounded in science and the study of optics. In the view of the Neo-Impressionists, the movement was the logical successor to Impressionism.

After exposure to Impressionism, Seurat developed a fascination with unifying color theory with a visual representation of it. He began to learn the theories of researchers who combined studies in optics, aesthetics, and color theory. In doing so, he rejected the Impressionists' random, spontaneous methodology with one based in optical science, in which the artist laid down pure colors side by side according to the spectrum so that the viewer's eye could combine them. His mature style was a synthesis of Impressionist color experiments, the classical notion of structure inherited from Renaissance painting, and the new scientific theories about juxtaposed colors.

Seurat spelled out his formula concretely in his writings as Divisionism, a term often given to his style. His forms were divided into areas of dots, small lines, triangles, circles, and squares of color. Subsequent adherents to Neo-Impressionism who worked primarily in dots of color developed the term Pointillism. Pointillism as an artistic practice continues to attract artists into the 21^st century.

Drummond grew up near Evanston, Illinois, on the north side of Chicago on Lake Michigan. She initially studied at the Illinois Institute of Technology (then called Illinois Institute of Design). In 1952, she earned an MA from the University of Louisville, Kentucky, believed to be the first woman to do so. Between 1952 and 1953, she traveled to Venice on a Fulbright Scholarship.

In 1953, Drummond moved to New York and became a member of the co-op Tanager Gallery (1952–1962) on East 10th Street. The Tanager Gallery was the first co-operative artists' gallery that provided an alternative to the “upscale” galleries on Madison Avenue. Drummond was one of the artist-bohemians living on 10th Street, a location that offered avant-garde artists accessibility to installations, happenings, jazz sessions, and performance art. In 1958, after seeing an exhibition of the paintings of Seurat, Drummond began to employ Pointillism in her work, an aesthetic that characterized her work for her entire career.

Saatchi Art highlights many contemporary pointillist painters.

Correlations to Davis programs: Explorations in Art 2E Grade 4: 6.7; Explorations in Art 2E Grade 5: 3.15; Explorations in Art 2E Grade 6: 5.1; The Visual Experience 4E: 7.6