Paintings of Paul Signac 16: Cézanne’s influence

Over the last three weeks I have shown a few of the watercolour sketches made by Paul Signac (1863-1935), which may have come as a surprise if you’ve previously only known his pointillist oil paintings. In this article I look at how those watercolour sketches changed in response to Signac’s exposure to the late watercolours of Paul Cézanne.

Although I’ve been unable to find many good images of Signac’s early watercolour sketches, the following seems to be fairly representative of those he painted in the nineteenth century.

Paul Signac (1863-1935), Harbour (1894), further details not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Harbour (1894) is one of the many sketches he made of the harbour of Saint-Tropez while he lived there, which appear to have been primarily intended to lead to finished oil paintings in pointillist style.

Paul Signac (1863-1935), Rotterdam (1906), watercolour and graphite, 25.4 x 40.6 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art…