It consists entirely of confetti, Paul Gauguin dismissed a picture of Paul Signac.

The younger colleague practiced a new style of painting, influenced by Georges Seurat, which was quickly adopted by many other artists.

Disparaging, ridiculing or interested, even serious with reference to the theory of colors: at the end of the nineteenth century, art criticism came up with comments, but failed to provide a fixed name.

Terms such as divisionism, chromo-luminarism or pointillism finally gave way to the term neo-impressionism, which was coined by the Seurat adept, whose art Gauguin disliked.

Stages of his life

Paul Signac was well connected in the Parisian art scene. His contemporaries valued his commitment to modernism, for example as a co-founder of the Salon des Indépendants. His pictures were revelation to many, his writing “De Delacroix au neo-impressionnisme” bed reading; whom he received for an interview, whom he became a mentor, considered himself lucky. This contributed to the fact that the painter and author also became a collector. The Musée d'Orsay is now devoting itself to this lesser-known role and is showing a wide selection of around four hundred paintings, drawings and graphics, sculptures and ceramics in its collection. Some things have changed hands in the course of time, but with archival material it was possible to reconstruct Signac's good luck as a collector for the “Signac collectionneur” show and its catalog. Much adorned the walls of his apartments in Paris.But Signac was also at home in Saint-Tropez, back then not a summer resort, let alone a meeting place for the jet set, but a simple port town. Here he bought the Villa La Hune in 1897, where the young Henri Matisse visited him. Matisse's neo-impressionist painting “Luxe, calme et volupté”, which Signac acquired for his villa, goes back to the exchange between the two artists.

Signac's collection reflects stages of his artistic life and friendships, but also chapters of his writing. At the age of sixteen he discovered the then groundbreaking impressionism, at twenty-one he bought a corresponding landscape painting by Paul Cézanne. Numerous other purchases followed, but some acquisitions were also based on barter or a gesture of friendship. Van Gogh's “Zwei Herring” brought Signac with him from Arles, where he visited the Dutchman and received the still life as a thank you. The heart of the collection, which also includes works by the Symbolists and the Nabis, are works by artists from the narrower neo-impressionist circle: Henri Edmond Cross, Charles Angrand, Maximilien Luce. This series includes Théo van Rysselberghe, who owes a painting towhich shows Signac as a sailor in the Mediterranean, and Lucie Cousturier, Signac's student. He also acquired works by Fauves such as Albert Marquet and Louis Valtat. The post-Fauvist portrait of the travesty singer Modjesko was made by Kees van Dongen.

Seurat held a special position in Signac's collection, as emphasized by the exhibition architecture. A rotunda provides the framework for a kind of show in the show, as Signac owned more than eighty works by the 31-year-old who died in 1891: sketches, drawings, oil studies, but also his last painting “Le cirque”. Signac parted with the picture in 1923 - it shows an artist floating above a galloping white horse, her whipping partner and two clowns - in order to cushion his lavish lifestyle. In 1898 he had sold a pastel by Degas because he found it unbearable that its author had joined the pack of informers who had accused the officer Alfred Dreyfus of espionage, but who were often more bothered by his Judaism.After 1920 Signac regretted this step - and bought Degas afterwards.

"Signac collectionneur"

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In the Musée d'Orsay, Paris;

until February 13th.

The catalog costs 42 euros.