Biographie
1863–1935
Born in Paris into a bourgeois family, Paul Signac decided aged nineteen to become a painter. Partially autodidact, Signac was first influenced by Impressionism. Aged twenty Signac met Claude Monet, who remained a life-long friend. In 1884, Signac was a founding member of the ‘Société des Artistes Indépendants’ and its first Salon. Signac contributed two paintings, entitled Le Soleil du Pont d’Austerlitz (The Sun at Austerlitz Bridge) and L’Hirondelle au Pont-Royal (The Swallow at Pont Royal). At the time Signac met Georges Seurat, leader of the young Neo-Impressionism painters, whose objective it was to exceed the techniques of Impressionism by furthering the research into the theories of colour. This marked the start of Divisionism, which the contemporary art critics also called Pointillism. Together with the elder Pissarro and Georges Seurat, Signac formed the so-called group of scientific Impressionists, who based their technique on the scientific division of colour. Signac produced his first Divisionism works in 1886: a series of works painted in Les Andelys, a small town in Normandy. With the death of Georges Seurat in 1891, Paul Signac became the leader of Neo-Impressionism.
Signac discovered the charming fishing village of Saint-Tropez in 1892, where he acquired a property in 1897. Signac painted an equal amount of landscapes in the South of France than in Paris on the banks of the Seine. Less dogmatic and scientific than Georges Seurat, Signac was very much involved with the next generation of painters.
In 1899, Signac published his famous essay D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme in which he explained the history of the colour theories and the division of primary colours, establishing Delacroix as the father of all colourists. In 1908, Signac became the president of the ‘Société des Artistes Indépendants’ and had a decisive influence on the young Fauve painters Henri Matisse and André Derain. Signac never stopped championing their work, even whilst they were experimenting with Cubism. Signac passed away aged seventy-one in 1935.