Paul Signac

Paul Signac was a French Neo-Impressionist who pioneered Pointillism alongside Georges Seurat. Having jettisoned his architectural studies in favour of painting, he was initially influenced by Impressionism. It was after helping set up the Salon des Indépendents in 1884 that he met Seurat, becoming entranced by the latter’s systematic technique and ideas on colour theory. Together they developed Pointillist technique, whereby tiny separate dots of colour are applied to canvas, becoming a coherent whole only when fused together optically by the viewer. Signac loved sailing around the Mediterranean, producing countless sketches of the French coast that were then turned into considered studio pieces. In the process, he developed his own distinctive ‘mosaic’ style of brushwork. After Seurat’s early death in 1891, Signac became the figurehead of Neo-Impressionism, influencing younger painters like Matisse and Derain in their journey towards Fauvism. He also had a strong interest in politics, displaying a particular sympathy for anarchism.