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The lives, circles and cities behind the paintings

French1863–1935

Paul Signac

A painter who, with Seurat, developed the pointillist dot method and became its main champion. He sailed the French coast and painted harbours in shimmering colour.

Sources: WikipediaBritannicaSmithsonian American Art Museum

A life in paintings

  1. 1863
    Born
  3. 1884
    The Salon des Indépendants

    A new annual exhibition with no jury opens in Paris. Anyone who pays can show.

    Source: Wikipedia
    Worked with Georges SeuratParis

    Seurat and Signac met at the founding of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1884 and together developed Neo-Impressionism; after Seurat's early death in 1891 Signac became its chief theorist.

    Source: Wikipedia
  5. 1886
    The last Impressionist exhibition

    Seurat shows a huge picture made of dots, and the group splits over it.

    Sources: Wikipedia: ImpressionismWikipedia: Georges Seurat
  6. 1887
    Worked with Vincent van GoghAsnières; Arles

    Van Gogh and Signac met at Père Tanguy's paint shop and in 1887 painted together along the Seine at Asnières; Signac recalled Vincent 'in a blue zinc worker's smock' with dots of colour on his sleeves. Signac visited him in Arles in March 1889.

    Source: Van Gogh Museum
  8. 1889
    The Paris World’s Fair

    The Eiffel Tower opens for the Exposition Universelle, and Paris shows itself as the capital of the modern world.

    Source: Wikipedia
  10. 1894
  12. 1904
    Influenced Henri MatisseSaint-Tropez

    Matisse spent summer 1904 with Signac at Saint-Tropez, working alongside him and Henri-Edmond Cross, and learned the Divisionist dot. The result, Luxe, Calme et Volupté, is counted the starting point of Fauvism; Signac bought it.

    Source: Wikipedia
  14. 1935
    Died

Circles

Where to see them

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

New York

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