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 :. | Impression | Impression | Bell tower | woman arranging her hair opus | marseilles |
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Jules Joseph Lefebvre
(Tournan-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, 14 March 1836 - Paris, 24 February 1911) was a French figure painter. Lefebvre entered the École nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts in 1852 and was a pupil of Leon Cogniet. He won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1861. Between 1855 and 1898, he exhibited 72 portraits in the Paris Salon. In 1891, he became a member of the French Academie des Beaux-Arts. He was an instructor at the Academie Julian in Paris. He is chiefly important as an excellent and sympathetic teacher who numbered many Americans among his 1500 or more pupils. Some of his famous students were the Scottish-born landscape painter William Hart, as long as Georges Rochegrosse, Felix Vallotton, and many more. He was long a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts. Many of his paintings are single figures of beautiful women. Among his best portraits were those of M. L. Reynaud and the Prince Imperial (1874). Among his many decorations were a first-class medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 and the medal of honor in 1886. He was a Commander of the Legion of Honor and a member of the Institut de France.
Theodore Roussel
English Painter, 1847-1926 English painter and etcher of French birth. He was born and educated in France and settled in England in 1878, when he quickly established a reputation. Largely self-taught, his few extant early paintings show an eclectic style that combines the techniques of the Old Masters, which he studied in detail, with the subject-matter of modern urban life. In 1885 he was introduced to James McNeill Whistler, his neighbour in Chelsea, London, and in consequence a lifelong friendship was formed. As Roussel was a member of Whistler's London circle his work in watercolour and oil was influenced by the latter in style and choice of subject-matter. His oft-quoted remark that he was a 'pupil of Whistler' is, however, belied by his frequently distinct style, as seen in such paintings as the Reading Girl (1886-7; London, Tate). In 1888 Whistler introduced him to the techniques of etching and drypoint, resulting in such etchings as the Sign of the 'White Horse', Parson's Green (c. 1893-4; see Rutter, pl. xxx). For the remainder of his life he relentlessly pursued the medium, even, like Whistler, designing his own special frames. Always fascinated by the theoretical and practical nature of colour science, he constantly experimented and was an early pioneer of the technique of colour etching in England, producing such works as Dawn.
Suzanne Valadon
French Post-Impressionist Painter, 1865-1938 French painter and artist's model. She led a lonely childhood in Paris as the daughter of an unmarried and unaffectionate maid, seeking refuge from her bleak circumstances by living in a dream world. While residing in the Montmartre district of Paris, she became an artist's model, working in particular with those painters who frequented the Lapin Agile. From 1880 to 1887, for example, she sat regularly for Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, posing for both the male and female figures in the Sacred Wood (1884-6; Lyon, Mus. B.-A.). She also modelled for Renoir, Luigi Zandomeneghi, Th?ophile Steinlein, Jean-Louis Forain, Giuseppe De Nittis and Jean-Jacques Henner. No longer able to tolerate the passive role of the model,