25 Facts About Paul Signac

Paul-Victor-Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863.

Paul Signac's parents wanted him to study architecture but, as he said, his preference was to draw the Seine.

Paul Signac was particularly affected by an 1880 exhibition of Claude Monet's work.

Paul Signac 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.

Paul Signac 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.

Paul Signac envisioned the south of France as the perfect location for a future anarchist utopia.

Paul Signac was a guiding force in the Societe and was its President from 1908 until his death.

Paul Signac would meet Toulouse Lautrec who was a friend of Van Gogh.

Paul Signac declared he would continue to fight for Van Gogh's honor if Lautrec was killed.

In 1888, Paul Signac discovered anarchist ideas by reading Elisee Reclus, Kropotkin, and Jean Grave, who all developed the ideas of anarchist communism.

The Neo-Impressionists influenced the next generation: Paul Signac inspired Henri Matisse and Andre Derain in particular, thus playing a decisive role in the evolution of Fauvism.

Paul Signac himself did not admire the style when it first appeared.

Paul 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.

Paul Signac purchased the work after the 1905 Salon des Independants.

In 1908 Paul Signac was elected president of the Twenty-fourth Salon des Independants.

Paul Signac was the first patron to buy a painting by Matisse.

Paul 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.

On 7 November 1892, Paul Signac married Berthe Robles at the town hall of the 18th arrondissement of Paris.

In September 1913, Paul Signac rented a house at Antibes, where he took up residence with Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange.

Paul Signac gave birth to their daughter, Ginette, on 2 October 1913.

Meanwhile, Paul Signac left La Hune and the Castel Beranger apartment to Berthe and they remained friends for the rest of his life.

Paul Signac died from sepsis in Paris on 15 August 1935 at the age of 71.

Paul Signac wrote several important works on the theory of art, among them, From Eugene Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, first published in serial form in 1898.

Paul Signac authored several introductions to the catalogues of art exhibitions and many other writings yet to be published.

One-hundred-and-thirty-three watercolors and drawings by Paul Signac are in the collection of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, which is the largest assemblage of Paul Signac's graphic art outside of France.