Paul Signac

Paul-Victor-Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863.{{sfn|Ferretti-Bocquillon|2001|p=297}} His parents wanted him to study architecture but, as he said, his preference was to draw the Seine. He was particularly affected by an 1880 exhibition of Claude Monet's work. Signac began boating.{{sfn|Ferretti-Bocquillon|2001|p=298}}

File:Signac - Portrait de Félix Fénéon.jpg, by Paul Signac in 1890, oil on canvas, 73.5 × 92.5 cm (28.9 × 36.4 in), Museum of Modern Art, New York]]

File:Seurat Paul Signac.jpg in 1890, conté crayon, private collection]]

File:Paul Signac, 1893, Femme à l'ombrelle, oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm, Musée d'Orsay.jpg, Paris]]

In 1884 he met Claude Monet and Georges Seurat. He was struck by the systematic working methods of Seurat and by his theory of colors and he became Seurat's faithful supporter, friend, and heir with his description of Neo-Impressionism and Divisionism method.Ruhberg Kark, Art of the 20th Century Benedikt Taschen Verlag GMBH 1998 {{ISBN|3-8228-4089-0}} Under Seurat's influence he abandoned the short brushstrokes of Impressionism to experiment with scientifically-juxtaposed small dots of pure color, intended to combine and blend not on the canvas, but in the viewer's eye, the defining feature of Pointillism.

The Mediterranean coast is a major theme across Signac's paintings.{{Cite book |last1=Brodskaya |first1=Nathalia |title=Post-Impressionism |date=2014 |language=en |isbn=978-1-78310-389-8 |publisher=Parkstone International |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ksqjAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA76 |page=76 |access-date=26 September 2021 |archive-date=26 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210926002026/https://books.google.com/books?id=ksqjAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA76 |url-status=live }} He left the capital each summer, to stay in the south of France in the village of Collioure or at St. Tropez, where he bought a house and invited his friends. He envisioned the south of France as the perfect location for a future anarchist utopia. Anne Dymond (2003) A Politicized Pastoral: Signac and the Cultural Geography of Mediterranean France, The Art Bulletin, 85:2, 353-370, DOI: 10.1080/00043079.2003.10787076 .

Signac, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, and Seurat were among the founders of the Société des Artistes Indépendants. The association began in Paris 29 July 1884 with the organization of massive exhibitions, embracing as their motto, "Neither jury nor awards" (Sans jury ni récompense). "The purpose of Société des Artistes Indépendants—based on the principle of abolishing admission jury—is to allow the artists to present their works to public judgement with complete freedom".{{cite web|url=http://www.artistes-independants.fr/index.php?page=historique&chlangue=us|title=Société des Artistes Indépendants|website=www.artistes-independants.fr|access-date=17 August 2015|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304044004/http://www.artistes-independants.fr/index.php?page=historique&chlangue=us|url-status=live}} For the following three decades their annual exhibitions flourished and set the trends in art of the early twentieth century. Signac was a guiding force in the Société and was its President from 1908 until his death.

File:Paul Signac - Capo di Noli.jpg, 1898, oil on canvas, 93.5 × 75 cm (36.8 × 29.5 in), Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne]]

File:Paul Signac, 1893-95, Au temps d’harmonie, oil on canvas, 310 x 410 cm.jpg

In 1886 Signac met Vincent van Gogh in Paris. During 1887 the two artists regularly went to Asnières-sur-Seine together, where they painted such subjects as river landscapes and cafés. Initially, Van Gogh chiefly admired Signac's loose painting technique. Signac would also meet Toulouse Lautrec who was a friend of Van Gogh.{{Cite web|title=Portrait of Vincent van Gogh Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1887|url=https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/d0693V1962|access-date=2021-09-23|website=Van Gogh Museum|language=en|archive-date=23 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210923172612/https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/d0693V1962|url-status=live}}

In March 1889, Signac visited Van Gogh at Arles. In 1890, during the banquet of the XX exhibition in Brussels, Lautrec challenged to a duel the artist Henri de Groux who criticized Van Gogh's works. Signac declared he would continue to fight for Van Gogh’s honor if Lautrec was killed. De Groux apologized for the slight and left the group and the duel never took place.{{Cite web|last=Bailey|first=Martin|date=2019-09-12|title=New discoveries: Paul Signac painted watercolours of Van Gogh's asylum|url=https://www.theartnewspaper.com/blog/discovered-paul-signac-watercolours-of-van-gogh-s-asylum|access-date=2021-09-23|website=The Art Newspaper|language=en|archive-date=23 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210923172102/https://www.theartnewspaper.com/blog/discovered-paul-signac-watercolours-of-van-gogh-s-asylum|url-status=live}}

The next year he made a short trip to Italy, seeing Genoa, Florence, and Naples.

In 1888, Signac discovered anarchist ideas by reading Élisée Reclus, Kropotkin, and Jean Grave, who all developed the ideas of anarchist communism. With his friends Angrand Cross, Maximilien Luce, and Camille Pissarro he contributed to Jean Grave's paper, Les Temps Nouveaux (New Times).

In 1892, he sailed the Garonne River southeast in France to the Mediterranean Sea, spending time in Saint-Tropez.{{sfn|Ferretti-Bocquillon|2001|p=304}}

Signac experimented with various media. As well as oil paintings and watercolors he made etchings, lithographs, and many pen-and-ink sketches composed of small, laborious dots.

The Neo-Impressionists influenced the next generation: Signac inspired Henri Matisse and André Derain in particular, thus playing a decisive role in the evolution of Fauvism. Signac himself did not admire the style when it first appeared.Wright, Alastair. Matisse and the Subject of Modernism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 94.

Having prospered well, his financial support of the arts was considerable. As donations, he sent regular cheques and made a gift of his works for five lotteries between 1895 and 1912.{{cite web

| title = Paul Signac: 1863–1935

| url = http://libcom.org/history/signac-paul-1863-1935

| access-date = 6 November 2006

| archive-date = 12 October 2006

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061012020813/http://libcom.org/history/signac-paul-1863-1935

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}} Signac's 1893 painting, In the Time of Harmony originally was entitled, In the Time of Anarchy, but political repression targeting the anarchists in France at this time forced him to change the title before the work could be accepted by a gallery.{{cite news

| title = The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Agents

| publisher = Pantheon

| url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/mar/27/world-never-was-alex-butterworth

| first = Stuart

| last = Christie

| date = 27 March 2010

| access-date = 12 December 2016

| archive-date = 26 January 2021

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210126083432/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/mar/27/world-never-was-alex-butterworth

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At the 1905 Salon des Indépendants, Henri Matisse exhibited the proto-Fauve painting Luxe, Calme et Volupté. The brightly colored composition was painted in 1904 after a summer spent working in St. Tropez on the French Riviera alongside the neo-Impressionist painters Henri-Edmond Cross and Paul Signac.UCLA Art Council et al. 1966, p. 11 The painting is Matisse's most important work in which he used the Divisionist technique advocated by Signac, which Matisse had adopted in 1898 after reading Signac's essay, d'Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme.Oxford Art Online, "Henri Matisse"[https://archive.org/details/deugnedelacroi00signuoft Paul Signac, d'Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme, 1898 (Third edition 1921)] Signac purchased the work after the 1905 Salon des Indépendants. In 1908 Signac was elected president of the Twenty-fourth Salon des Indépendants.[https://books.google.com/books?id=VcaMyvjUZhIC&q=metzinger&pg=PR23 Russell T. Clement, Les Fauves: A Sourcebook, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801115457/https://books.google.com/books?id=VcaMyvjUZhIC&pg=PR23&lpg=PR23&dq=salle%20VII%2C%20salon%20d%27automne%20de%201905&source=bl&ots=alVRJahAml&sig=6SkzgOftNxhpsdYdDNKbJjzqXUY&hl=en#v=onepage&q=metzinger&f=false |date=1 August 2020 }} {{ISBN|0-313-28333-8}}

As president of the Société des Artistes Indépendants, from 1908 until his death, Signac encouraged younger artists by exhibiting the controversial works of the Fauves and the Cubists. He was the first patron to buy a painting by Matisse.

Signac served as a juror with Florence Meyer Blumenthal in awarding the Prix Blumenthal, a grant given between 1919 and 1954 to painters, sculptors, decorators, engravers, writers, and musicians.{{cite web

| title = Florence Meyer Blumenthal

| publisher = Jewish Women's Archive, Michele Siegel

| url = http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/blumenthal-florence-meyer

| access-date = 13 July 2010

| archive-date = 14 June 2021

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210614053013/https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/blumenthal-florence-meyer

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On 7 November 1892, Signac married Berthe Roblès at the town hall of the 18th arrondissement of Paris. The witnesses at the wedding were Alexandre Lemonier, Maximilien Luce, Camille Pissarro, and Georges Lecomte.

In November 1897, the Signacs moved to a new apartment in the Castel Béranger, which was built by Hector Guimard. A little later, in December of the same year, they acquired a house in Saint-Tropez named, La Hune, where the painter had a vast studio constructed that he inaugurated on 16 August 1898.

In September 1913, Signac rented a house at Antibes, where he took up residence with Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange. She gave birth to their daughter, Ginette, on 2 October 1913. Meanwhile, Signac left La Hune and the Castel Beranger apartment to Berthe and they remained friends for the rest of his life. On 6 April 1927, Signac formally adopted Ginette. His granddaughter, Françoise Cachin, was an art historian.

Paul Signac died from sepsis in Paris on 15 August 1935 at the age of 71. His body was cremated and was interred three days later, on 18 August, at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Signac wrote several important works on the theory of art, among them, From Eugène Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, first published in serial form in 1898. It is an important history of color and explanation of neo-impressionist technique. It also discusses Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819–1891). Signac also authored several introductions to the catalogues of art exhibitions and many other writings yet to be published.

Politically, he was an anarchist, as were many of his friends, including Félix Fénéon, Maximilien Luce and Camille Pissarro.

{{main|List of paintings by Paul Signac}}

File:Paul Signac Road to Gennevilliers.jpg|alt=painting|Road to Gennevilliers, 1883, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

File:Comblat-le-Chateau. Le Pré.jpg|alt=painting|Comblat le Chateau. Le Pré., 1886, Dallas Museum of Art

File:Paul Signac - Les Andelys, Côte d'Aval - 1993.208 - Art Institute of Chicago.jpg|Les Andelys, Côte d'Aval, 1886, oil on canvas, 60 × 92 cm, Art Institute of Chicago

File:Paul Signac - Gasometers at Clichy - Google Art Project.jpg|Gasometers at Clichy, 1886, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

File:Paul Signac Dimanche.jpg|Sunday (Dimanche), 1889, Private Collection

File:Paul Signac - Cassis, Cap Lombard, Opus 196 - Google Art Project.jpg|alt=painting|Cassis, Cap Lombard, Opus 196, 1889, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Hague

File:Le Port au soleil couchant, Opus 236 (Saint-Tropez) by Paul Signac, 1892.jpg|The Port at Sunset, 1892, Museum Barberini, Potsdam

File:Place des Lices Paul Signac.jpg|Place des Lices, 1893, oil on canvas, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

File:Paul Signac - The Bonaventure Pine - Google Art Project.jpg|The Bonaventure Pine, 1893, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

File:Paul signac saint-tropez fontaine des lices.jpg|Saint-Tropez. Fontaine des Lices, 1895, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

File:Golfe Juan by Paul Signac (1863-1935) - IMG 7171.JPG|alt=painting|Golfe-Juan, ca. 1896, Worcester Art Museum

File:Le Démolisseur P Signac Nancy 2718.jpg|Le Démolisseur, c. 1897-1899, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

File:Paul Signac - The Port of Saint-Tropez - Google Art Project.jpg|The Port of Saint-Tropez, 1901, oil on canvas, 131 x 161.5 cm (51.6 x 63.6 in), National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

File:Paul Signac, Grand Canal (Venise).jpg|alt=painting|Grand Canal (Venice), 1905, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio

File:Paul Signac, 1905, The Lagoon of Saint Mark, Venice, oil on canvas, 129.5 x 162.6 cm, Chrysler Museum of Art.jpg|The Lagoon of Saint Mark, Venice, 1905 oil on canvas, 129.5 x 162.6 cm, Chrysler Museum of Art

File:Paul Signac - Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde (La Bonne Mere) (1905-06, Marseilles, Metropolitan Museum of Art New York Collection).jpg|alt=painting|Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde (La Bonne-Mère) Marseilles, 1905–06, Metropolitan Museum of Art

File:Paul Signac - The Port of Rotterdam - Google Art Project.jpg|alt=painting|The Port of Rotterdam, 1907, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

File:Signac, Paul - The Harbour at Marseilles.jpg|The Port of Marseille, 1907, Hermitage Museum

File:Paul Signac, 1909, The Pine Tree at Saint Tropez, oil on canvas, 72 x 92 cm, Pushkin Museum, Moscow.jpg|alt=painting|The Pine Tree at Saint Tropez, 1909, Pushkin Museum, Moscow

File:Paul Signac - Antibes, die Türme.jpeg|alt=painting|Antibes, 1911, Albertina, Vienna

File:Signac, Antibes, le soir ( Musée d'art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg ).jpg|Antibes le soir, 1914, Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art

File:Paul Signac - The Pink Cloud, Antibes.jpg|Antibes, The Pink Cloud, 1916, oil on canvas, 92 x 36 cm (36 x 28 in), Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston

File:Paul Signac, 1921, Entrée du port de la Rochelle, oil on canvas, 130.5 x 162 cm, Musée d'Orsay.jpg|alt=painting|Entrée du port de la Rochelle, 1921, oil on canvas, 130.5 x 162 cm (51.4 × 63.8 in), Musée d'Orsay

File:Signac - Port of Concarneau, 1925.jpg|Port of Concarneau, 1925, Artizon Museum, Tokyo

• L'almanach de Cocagne pour l'an 1920–1922, Dédié aux vrais Gourmands Et aux Francs Buveurs (1921), published by Jean Cocteau and Bertrand Guégan (1892–1943)[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/799721540 Notice WorldCat] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210320155123/https://www.worldcat.org/title/almanach-de-cocagne-pour-lan-1921-dedie-aux-vrais-gourmands-et-aux-francs-buveurs/oclc/799721540 |date=20 March 2021 }}; [http://www.sudoc.abes.fr/DB=2.1//SRCH?IKT=12&TRM=121889386&COOKIE=U10178,Klecteurweb,D2.1,E7d5bdaf4-147,I250,B341720009+,SY,A%5C9008+1,,J,H2-26,,29,,34,,39,,44,,49-50,,53-78,,80-87,NLECTEUR+PSI,R90.154.204.79,FN sudoc] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220907114122/http://www.sudoc.abes.fr/cbs/xslt/DB=2.1//SRCH?IKT=12&TRM=121889386&COOKIE=U10178,Klecteurweb,D2.1,E7d5bdaf4-147,I250,B341720009+,SY,A%5C9008+1,,J,H2-26,,29,,34,,39,,44,,49-50,,53-78,,80-87,NLECTEUR+PSI,R90.154.204.79,FN&COOKIE=U10178,Klecteurweb,D2.1,E55eb668a-48f,I250,B341720009+,SY,QDEF,A%5C9008+1,,J,H2-26,,29,,34,,39,,44,,49-50,,53-78,,80-87,NLECTEUR+PSI,R207.241.232.186,FN&COOKIE=U10178,Klecteurweb,D2.1,E55eb668a-48f,I250,B341720009+,SY,QDEF,A%5C9008+1,,J,H2-26,,29,,34,,39,,44,,49-50,,53-78,,80-87,NLECTEUR+PSI,R207.241.232.186,FN |date=7 September 2022 }}; [http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb326866411 BnF] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160603013508/http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb326866411 |date=3 June 2016 }}. Engraved on wood and unpublished drawings of: Matisse, J. Marchand, R. Dufy, Sonia Lewitska, de Segonzac, Jean Émile Laboureur, Friesz, Marquet, Pierre Laprade, Signac, Louis Latapie, Suzanne Valadon, Henriette Tirman and others.´
• La Gerbe (Nantes), periodical.

• List of Orientalist artists
• Orientalism
• The Lagoon of Saint Mark, Venice (1905)

{{cite web | url=https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/arkansas-arts-center-464/ | title=Encyclopedia of Arkansas }}

One-hundred-and-thirty-three watercolors and drawings by Signac are in the collection of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, which is the largest assemblage of Signac’s graphic art outside of France. The collection was donated in 1999 by philanthropist James T. Dyke.

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{cite book |last=Ferretti-Bocquillon |first=Marina| title= Signac, 1863–1935 | location=New York | publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art | year=2001 | isbn=0-87099-998-2|display-authors=etal | url=http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15324coll10/id/161820/rec/1 }}
• Signac 1863–1935, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris 2001 {{ISBN|2-7118-4127-8}}
• The New Encyclopædia Britannica, 1988, Volume 10, Micropædia, pg. 796

{{Wikiquote}}

{{Commons category}}

• [http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/resultat-collection.html?no_cache=1 Works by Signac at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201112001937/https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/resultat-collection.html?no_cache=1 |date=12 November 2020 }}
• Finding Aid for Paul Signac letters and Signac family correspondence, 1860–1935, Getty Research Institute
• [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6137362k/f44.image.r=Tirman%20Signac.langEN Woodcuts by Paul Signac, Henriette Tirman, Henri Ottmann and others, La Gebre, 1921/04 (A3, N31), Gallica, BnF]
• [http://www.normandythenandnow.com/how-paul-signac-discovered-the-finer-points-of-art-in-les-andelys/ Detail about Paul Signac's 1886 three month visit to Les Andelys that crystallised his theories around Pointillism.]

{{Paul Signac}}

{{Post-Impressionism}}

{{Authority control (arts)}}

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Category:1863 births

Category:1935 deaths

Category:19th-century French painters

Category:20th-century French painters

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Category:Divisionist painters

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Category:French Post-impressionist painters

Category:Prix Blumenthal