拍品 3233* - A213 印象派&现代主义 - Freitag, 27. Juni 2025, 04.30 PM
PAUL SIGNAC
(1863 Paris 1935)
Saint-Tropez, port en fête. 1895.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated lower right: P. Signac / 95.
Entitled verso on the stretcher: Port en fête – Saint-Tropez.
Entitled verso on the stretcher: Port en fête – Saint-Tropez.
65.5 × 81 cm.
Certificate:
Provenance:
- Arsène Alexandre, Paris, acquired in 1902 directly from the artist.
- Sale Galerie Georges Petit, vente A. Alexandre, Paris, 18./19.5.1903, Lot 60.
- F. Féneon, Paris, acquired at the above auction, until 1912.
- With Galerie Bernheim-Jeune & Cie, Paris.
- Private collection, Munich, acquired in 1912 at the above gallery (original receipt available).
- Private collection, Germany, by descent.
Exhibited:
- Paris 1896, Exposition de la Société des Artistes Indépendants, Palais des Arts Libéraux, 9.4.–26.5.1896, no. 1056.
- Paris 1902, Exposition d'œuvres de Paul Signac, Galerie de l'Art Nouveau (Siegfried Bing), 2.6.1902, no. 9 ("Bateaux pavoisés").
- Brussels 1904, Exposition des Peintres Impressionnistes, La Libre Esthétique, 25.2.–29.3.1904, no. 151 ("Bateaux pavoisés").
- Paris 1907, Paul Signac, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 21.1.–2.2.1907, no. 20 ("Saint-Tropez. Matin de fête"; with ill of the sketch).
- Troyes 1909, Société Artistique de l'Aube, no. 265.
- London 1910, Manet and the Post-Impressionists, Grafton Galleries, 8.11.1910–15.1.1911, no. 57.
Literature:
- Gustave Kahn: Les petites expositions. M. Paul Signac, in: Le Petit Bleu de Paris, 3.6.1902, p. 3.
- Laertes: La quinzaine artistique, in: La Dépêche de Toulouse, 12.6.1902, p. 1.
- Edmond Pilon: Paul Signac (chez Bing), in: Aujourd'hui, June–July 1902, p. 85.
- L'Écho de France, 2.3.1904.
- G. Denoinville: Sensations d'art (2ème série), in: Voltaire, 2.3.1904, p. 3.
- Société artistique de l'Aube, in: Le Petit Troyen, 9.10.1909.
- J.-C. Holl: La jeune peinture contemporaine, Paris 1912, p. 77.
- Marina Ferretti-Bocquillon: Paul Signac au temps d'harmonie 1895–1913, in: Signac et la libération de la couleur, Münster 1996, p. 65.
In "Saint-Tropez, port en fête", Paul Signac conjures up in a pointillist style a dreamlike view of the port at Saint-Tropez, festively decorated with signal flags and sails vibrating in the light on the canvas. In the background the town with its famous bell tower is visible. The picture captivates with a harmoniously coordinated palette of varying shades of blue, into which white, pink and a few contrasting red-yellow tones are deliberately incorporated, breathing a joyful vibrancy into the work. The perspective suggests that the scene could have been viewed from a boat, which catapults the viewer into the middle of the gentle waters in the harbor. The painting was created in 1895 and is one of the earliest large-format works of this creative period.
Born in Paris and remaining there until the early 1890s, Paul Signac turned entirely to painting at the age of only 18 after breaking off his studies in architecture. His encounter with Claude Monet and Georges Seurat in 1884 during the preparations for the first "Salon des Artistes Indépendants" was formative for the artist, who was largely self-taught. While he admired Monet's atmospheric style of painting, Seurat's constructive, science-based work is more aligned with his own perspective. A deep friendship and a fruitful artistic exchange followed, which ultimately led to the later work identified as Neo-Impressionism.
Seurat and Signac reinterpret classical Impressionism by replacing the lively, spontaneous brushwork of the Impressionists with a new, more systematic approach. It is a painting process that aims at structure and stability. They do not seek the fleeting impression, but strive for a scientifically sound understanding of color and light. Both Signac and Seurat are passionate about researching the effects of color based on the physics of light and the principles of perception. They are convinced that a precise combination of pure color dots, pointillism, can result in a matchless visual brilliancy. In his seminal work "D'Eugène Delacroix au néo-impressionnisme" (1899), Signac formulated this goal as a "complete harmony of the work”, achieved through the balanced interplay of contrast, shading and luminosity.
After the early death of his close friend and companion Georges Seurat in 1891, Paul Signac sought escape from the Paris art world. The exhaustion that caught up with him after years of intensive work and commitment to Neo-Impressionism, together with the grief over Seurat's death, led to a decision that was to have a lasting impact on his art: he left Paris and went south by sailboat in the spring of 1892.
The journey was at once a retreat and a quest – inspired by the travel literature of Guy de Maupassant, who described the Mediterranean as a place of peace, beauty and rest. Signac sailed his yacht "Olympia" through France's waterways to the Mediterranean coast and finally reached Saint-Tropez – at that time a small, quiet fishing village, far away from the noise and hectic pace of the big city.
He encounters the village as a revelation. In a letter to his mother, Signac writes glowingly of his new home: a simple cottage in the midst of pine trees and roses, with a view of the glittering sea and its own anchorage. The surroundings – the light, the colors, the unspoiled nature – not only offer him relaxation, but also become a source of artistic inspiration. "Happiness – that's what I've just discovered," he writes. Saint-Tropez becomes his home and the center of his creative work, a place where he develops his pointillist style: more intense colors, bathed in more light, freer in composition. The Mediterranean becomes for him not only a motif, but also a metaphor – for harmony, openness and inner peace.
The present work exemplifies Signac's sophisticated technique along with his devotion to the beauty of Saint-Tropez and is a wonderful instance of his early output in which Signac has already found his own, unmistakable signature. Although Seurat's influence is still noticeable, the freer individual style that ultimately leads to Signac's explosively colorful late works is already evident here.
Although the painting is listed in Cachin’s catalogue raisonné, it appears there without an illustration, as the Signac Archive was previously only aware of a small ink sketch of the composition (cf. fig. 1). This newly rediscovered final version of the painting thus represents a major new discovery: the work was last mentioned publicly in 1912 when it was sold by the Parisian gallery Bernheim-Jeune to a prominent Munich collector. Through business trips to Berlin, Paris, and Belgium, he had established connections within important art circles. He began collecting early on, focusing on French Romantics, Impressionists, and also German Expressionists. Today, several works originally from his collection are housed in public museums, such as the Leopold Museum in Vienna or the Neue Pinakothek in Munich.
The Signac painting remained in his private possession after its purchase from Bernheim-Jeune and was never published or exhibited publicly. It has remained in private ownership until now and is being presented publicly for the first time in over 110 years.
Born in Paris and remaining there until the early 1890s, Paul Signac turned entirely to painting at the age of only 18 after breaking off his studies in architecture. His encounter with Claude Monet and Georges Seurat in 1884 during the preparations for the first "Salon des Artistes Indépendants" was formative for the artist, who was largely self-taught. While he admired Monet's atmospheric style of painting, Seurat's constructive, science-based work is more aligned with his own perspective. A deep friendship and a fruitful artistic exchange followed, which ultimately led to the later work identified as Neo-Impressionism.
Seurat and Signac reinterpret classical Impressionism by replacing the lively, spontaneous brushwork of the Impressionists with a new, more systematic approach. It is a painting process that aims at structure and stability. They do not seek the fleeting impression, but strive for a scientifically sound understanding of color and light. Both Signac and Seurat are passionate about researching the effects of color based on the physics of light and the principles of perception. They are convinced that a precise combination of pure color dots, pointillism, can result in a matchless visual brilliancy. In his seminal work "D'Eugène Delacroix au néo-impressionnisme" (1899), Signac formulated this goal as a "complete harmony of the work”, achieved through the balanced interplay of contrast, shading and luminosity.
After the early death of his close friend and companion Georges Seurat in 1891, Paul Signac sought escape from the Paris art world. The exhaustion that caught up with him after years of intensive work and commitment to Neo-Impressionism, together with the grief over Seurat's death, led to a decision that was to have a lasting impact on his art: he left Paris and went south by sailboat in the spring of 1892.
The journey was at once a retreat and a quest – inspired by the travel literature of Guy de Maupassant, who described the Mediterranean as a place of peace, beauty and rest. Signac sailed his yacht "Olympia" through France's waterways to the Mediterranean coast and finally reached Saint-Tropez – at that time a small, quiet fishing village, far away from the noise and hectic pace of the big city.
He encounters the village as a revelation. In a letter to his mother, Signac writes glowingly of his new home: a simple cottage in the midst of pine trees and roses, with a view of the glittering sea and its own anchorage. The surroundings – the light, the colors, the unspoiled nature – not only offer him relaxation, but also become a source of artistic inspiration. "Happiness – that's what I've just discovered," he writes. Saint-Tropez becomes his home and the center of his creative work, a place where he develops his pointillist style: more intense colors, bathed in more light, freer in composition. The Mediterranean becomes for him not only a motif, but also a metaphor – for harmony, openness and inner peace.
The present work exemplifies Signac's sophisticated technique along with his devotion to the beauty of Saint-Tropez and is a wonderful instance of his early output in which Signac has already found his own, unmistakable signature. Although Seurat's influence is still noticeable, the freer individual style that ultimately leads to Signac's explosively colorful late works is already evident here.
Although the painting is listed in Cachin’s catalogue raisonné, it appears there without an illustration, as the Signac Archive was previously only aware of a small ink sketch of the composition (cf. fig. 1). This newly rediscovered final version of the painting thus represents a major new discovery: the work was last mentioned publicly in 1912 when it was sold by the Parisian gallery Bernheim-Jeune to a prominent Munich collector. Through business trips to Berlin, Paris, and Belgium, he had established connections within important art circles. He began collecting early on, focusing on French Romantics, Impressionists, and also German Expressionists. Today, several works originally from his collection are housed in public museums, such as the Leopold Museum in Vienna or the Neue Pinakothek in Munich.
The Signac painting remained in his private possession after its purchase from Bernheim-Jeune and was never published or exhibited publicly. It has remained in private ownership until now and is being presented publicly for the first time in over 110 years.
CHF 2 000 000 / 3 000 000 | (€ 2 061 860 / 3 092 780)
以瑞士法郎銷售 CHF 6 177 000 (包含買家佣金)
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