SIGNAC
WATERCOLORS
SIGNAC Watercolors
Exhibition from June 7 to July 17, 2021
Echoing the “Paul Signac” exhibition at the Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris, we are pleased to present a collection of twenty watercolors and two exceptional ink drawings by the artist.
Paul SIGNAC, the sea and the color…
Signac the sailor
Signac’s watercolors bear witness to French ports from 1899 to 1935.
Signac the painter and Signac the sailor are inseparable. Initiated to the pleasures of sailing by Caillebotte, Signac owned thirty-two boats throughout his life with names such as Manet-Zola-Wagner, Sindbad, and l’Olympia.
Signac the watercolorist
Without systematically using pointillist techniques but without abandoning anything from the gains of divisionism, Signac found watercolor to be a simultaneously spontaneous, impulsive and just “script”. He reached the pinnacle of his art with watercolors through freshness and colorful vivacity which served his instinctive sense of balance and composition.
Signac the watercolorist gave free rein to his natural vivacity. He virtuously painted the changing world of port life and the shimmer of water. First-draft work, which is unrepentant, watercolors allows freer fragmentation of each touch – a more spontaneous hand.
His watercolor work is the diary of a tireless traveler, a comprehensive tour of the fishing ports of France and is in itself, a monument.
Paul Signac, Sindbad, archives Signac
Paul Signac and the Lévy family at La Baule, archives Signac
Signac the announcer…
Signac announced the release of color.
Through the use of pure colors and their contrasts, in his oils as well as in his watercolors, Signac opened the way to modernism and foreshadowed Fauvism.
“In none of his watercolors does Signac wash or wipe, nor does he model: he writes lightly, delicately… He writes poems about the splendor of water with the glow of mother-of-pearl and the beautiful white of paper”.
Lucie Cousturier
The catalogue
The works
Click on the images to see the works in large format.
Click on their titles to view their full descriptions and contact us.
1 | Honfleur
Circa 1899
Watercolor on paper
Stamp of the signature lower left
Annotated lower right
17,5 x 12,5 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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4 | Marseille
Circa 1906
Watercolor on paper
Stamp of the signature lower right
Located lower left
12 x 18 cm
Provenance
– Private collection, Paris
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7 | Cannes, première pensée pour le tableau "Les Allées, Cannes"
1918
Ink on paper
Stamp of the signature lower right
10,3 x 18,2 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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10 | Groix, bateaux pavoisés
SOLD
1923
Watercolor on paper
Stamp of the signature lower right
Located and dated lower left
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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13 | Lézardrieux
SOLD
1924
Watercolor on paper
Signed, dated and located lower left
21,5 x 30,1 cm
Provenance
– Robert et Helena Eisner Collection, New York
– Collection Gabrielle Eisner Zomber Collection, Pennsylvanie
– Private collection, Paris
Nous contacter au sujet de cette œuvre
16 | Audierne
Circa 1925
Graphite with brown ink on paper
Stamp of the signature lower right
Located lower left
19,5 x 27,8 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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19 | Saint-Malo
1927
Watercolor on paper
Signed lower right
Located and dated lower left
26,5 x 42 cm
Provenance
– Private collection, Paris
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22 | Paimpol
1930
Watercolor on paper
Stamp of the signature lower right
Dated and annotated lower right
30 x 45 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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25 | Barfleur
October 14th, 1932
Watercolor on paper
Stamp of the signature lower left
Dated and located lower right
28,5 x 44 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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2 | Venise
1904
Watercolor on paper
Signed and dated lower left
19,5 x 25,1 cm
Provenance
– Morton Goldenberg collection, Philadelphie
– Private collection, U.S.A.
– Private collection, Paris
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5 | Saint-Tropez, nocturne
Circa 1910
Watercolor on paper
Stamp of the signature lower left
Located lower right
10,5 x 18,4 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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8 | Port-Louis, les sardiniers
Circa 1920
Watercolor on paper
Signed and located lower left
28,3 x 37 cm
Provenance
– Private collection, Paris
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11 | Groix, retour de pêche à Port Tudy
1923
Watercolor on paper
Stamp of the signature lower right
Located and dated lower left
28 x 44 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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14 | Paul Signac, Paris, la pointe de l’Ile de la Cité
Watercolor on paper
Signed lower right
31 x 44 cm
Provenance
– Collection privée, Paris
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17 | L’Estuaire du Trieux à marée haute
Circa 1925
Watercolor on paper
Signed with the initials « PS » lower right
10,4 x 16,2 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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20 | Paris, le Pont des Saints-Pères
1927
Watercolor on paper
Signed and dated lower left
27,2 x 43 cm
Provenance
– Private collection, France
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23 | Honfleur, la jetée
Février 1930
Watercolor on paper
Signed lower right
Dated and located lower left
28,3 x 45,3 cm
Provenance
– Private collection, France
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26 | Saint-Malo
January 1931
Watercolor on paper
Stamp of the signature lower left
Dated and located lower right
29,5 x 45 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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3 | Le Port de Saint-Tropez, le soir
SOLD
Circa 1906
Sepia on paper
Signed lower middle
63 x 80 cm
Provenance
– Private collection, Paris
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6 | Paris, la Seine au quai de Grenelle
Circa 1910
Graphite and lavis on paper
Signed with the initials lower right
Annotated lower left
22 x 28,8 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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9 | Lomalo
1922
Watercolor on paper
Stamp of the signature lower right,
Located and dated lower left
28,5 x 44 cm
Provenance
– Private collection, Paris
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12 | La Rochelle, les Pêcheurs du Perthuis
1924
India ink on paper
Stamp of the signature lower left
46,7 x 61,8 cm
Provenance
– Galerie Marcel Bernheim, Paris
– Private collection, New York
– Galerie de la Présidence, Paris
– Private collection, Monaco
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15 | Paimpol
1925
Watercolor on paper
Signed, located and dated lower left
30,5 x 46,8 cm
Provenance
– Private collection, Paris
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18 | L’Estuaire du Trieux à marée basse
Circa 1925
Watercolor on paper
Stamp of the signature lower left
10,4 x 16,4 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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21 | Deux goélettes à quai
Circa 1930
Graphite with Ink on paper
Stamp of the signature lower right
42 x 26,5 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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24 | Saint-Malo
October 18th, 1929
Watercolor on paper
Stamp of the signature lower left
Dated and located lower right
28 x 44 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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27 | Barfleur
Watercolor on paper
Stamp of the signature lower left
28,5 x 44 cm
Provenance
– Artist’s family
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Do you like Paul Signac ?
Here are two videos that might interest you.
A detailed biography is also presented on the Paul Signac “Artist’s page”
