Vente de tableaux et peintures de Paul Signac

Born in Paris in 1863, Paul Signac was a self-taught painter. As a young man he became interested in painting and aspired to a career in the arts. However, his parents insisted that he study architecture, and he reluctantly complied. When he left school, he started taking classes with the artist Emile Bin. He began to paint seriously. His first painting was completed in 1881. In his early days as an artist, he concentrated on painting landscapes of the Parisian suburbs, tableaux vivants painted in the open air.

A fervent admirer of the work of Caillebotte and Degas, whom he discovered at the fourth Impressionist Exhibition in 1879, Signac also wanted to join the Impressionist movement, which he saw as a symbol of freedom. His first works were strongly influenced by Monet, his mentor and faithful friend. His meeting with Seurat at the founding of the Salon des Indépendants in 1884 radically changed his approach to painting.

The cooperation between Signac and Seurat led to the creation of the pointillist style. This method, derived from impressionism, was first developed in 1886 and focuses on the specific style of the brush applying paint in tiny dots of pure colour. Pointillism is a style that differs from the typical methods used to mix pigments on the palette. Works using this technique include Antibes, Capo di Noli, The Port of Rotterdam and The Port of Saint-Tropez. Divisionism also used the same style as Pointillism to create images, but using more extended, cube-like brushstrokes. One of Signac's most significant paintings in this style is his portrait of Félix Fénéon (1890).

Paul Signac married Berthe Robles on 7 November 1892. The couple later separated, but they never divorced and remained close friends. He then entered into a relationship with Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange who gave birth to their daughter Ginette in 1913. A few years later, he adopted his previously illegitimate daughter in 1927. He died of septicaemia on 15 August 1935, aged 71.