1863-1935 French Paul Signac Galleries Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on November 11, 1863. He followed a course of training in architecture before deciding at the age of 18 to pursue a career as a painter. He sailed around the coasts of Europe, painting the landscapes he encountered. He also painted scenes of cities in France in his later years. In 1884 he met Claude Monet and Georges Seurat. He was struck by the systematic working methods of Seurat and by his theory of colours and became Seurat's faithful supporter. Under his influence he abandoned the short brushstrokes of impressionism to experiment with scientifically juxtaposed small dots of pure colour, intended to combine and blend not on the canvas but in the viewer's eye, the defining feature of pointillism. Many of Signac's paintings are of the French coast. He 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. In March 1889, he visited Vincent van Gogh at Arles. The next year he made a short trip to Italy, seeing Genoa, Florence, and Naples. The Port of Saint-Tropez, oil on canvas, 1901Signac loved sailing and began to travel in 1892, sailing a small boat to almost all the ports of France, to Holland, and around the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople, basing his boat at St. Tropez, which he "discovered". From his various ports of call, Signac brought back vibrant, colourful watercolors, sketched rapidly from nature. From these sketches, he painted large studio canvases that are carefully worked out in small, mosaic-like squares of color, quite different from the tiny, variegated dots previously used by Seurat. Signac himself experimented with various media. As well as oil paintings and watercolours he made etchings, lithographs, and many pen-and-ink sketches composed of small, laborious dots. The neo-impressionists influenced the next generation: Signac inspired Henri Matisse and Andr?? Derain in particular, thus playing a decisive role in the evolution of Fauvism. As president of the Societe des Artistes Ind??pendants from 1908 until his death, Signac encouraged younger artists (he was the first to buy a painting by Matisse) by exhibiting the controversial works of the Fauves and the Cubists.  Related Paintings of Paul Signac :. | Study of cloudy sky | Road | Entrance to the Port of Marseille | The Dining Room | Impression |
Related Artists:
Samuel King
1748-1819 Samuel King Gallery American painter, carver and nautical instrument maker. He was the son of Benjamin King, a mathematical and nautical instrument maker of Newport, RI. Samuel King's early portrait of the Rev. Ezra Stiles (New Haven, CT, Yale U. A.G.) is undoubtedly his masterpiece and a tour de force of symbolism. The portrait was begun in 1770 and completed on 1 August 1771. It shows the interest of the instrument maker in detail and exactitude of delineation. King's other known portraits show no such originality and in the main reflect compositions taken from portraits known to have been hanging in Newport at the time or from English prints. Since Samuel King and Charles Bird King (unrelated) were neighbours on Clarke Street in Newport, he probably influenced Charles Bird King. Washington Allston and Ann Hall (1792-1863) were both Samuel King's pupils.
Antonio Joli
1700-1777 Italian Antonio Joli Gallery Born in Modena, he first apprenticed with Rafaello Rinaldi. He then worked in Rome with Panini and the Galli-Bibiena studio. He became a painter of stage sets for the theater in Modena and Perugia. By 1735, he had moved to Venice and stayed till 1746, when he traveled to Germany, London (1744-48), and Madrid (1750-54). In London, he decorated the Richmond mansion of the director of the King's Theater at Haymarket, John James Heidegger. He returned to Venice in 1754, where he became on of the founding members of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. He traveled to Naples in 1762, and stayed there until he died.
Thomas Buttersworth
English Painter, 1768-1828, He was a seaman of the Napoleonic wars period who became a maritime painter producing works to commission, and was little exhibited during his lifetime. He was born on the Isle of Wight, England. He enlisted in the Royal Navy in London in 1795, and served on HMS Caroline during the wars with France, then was invalided home from Minorca in 1800. The National Maritime Museum in London has 27 watercolours by him, several of which are mounted on sheets from 18th century printed signal and muster books.