Paul Signac

Madame Druet, Paris (acquired from the artist)
Miriam & Philip Vineberg, Montreal (acquired in Paris circa 1970)
Thence by descent

Work is in excellent condition. Executed on a rectangular sheet of primed silk laid down on board. Board shows signs of age and may be original presentation. Image area is extremely well preserved and colors are very bright and fresh.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Watercolors are without doubt an integral part of Paul Signac’s body of works and Venise, San Giorgio is an intricate example that beautifully captures the artist’s philosophy and artistic approach. Executed on silk, this fan-shaped watercolor depicts a view from the east side of the Piazza San Marco toward the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, with its magnificent church and campanile. Since his discovery of the Mediterranean coast in 1892, Signac, an avid traveler, visited several coastal cities including Rotterdam, Marseilles, Saint-Tropez, Venice, Port-en-Bessin and Constantinople—most of which are diligently documented in the vibrant, colorfully dotted pictures that distinguish his oeuvre. Such travels not only highlighted Signac’s love of the sea, they became an integral element in the development of his artistic practice. While he started his career as a member of the Neo-Impressionists, Signac developed his own style and slowly departed from the strictures of the movement. Writing about Signac’s treatise on color, D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme, Floyd Ratliff notes: “Signac has come into his own as leader of the second phase of Neo-Impressionism. His own techniques were now paramount. Broader strokes of the brush—a true divisionism, distinct from pointillism—characterized all of his later work. He paid less and less attention to mathematical aesthetics, and more and more to the freer and more spontaneous medium of watercolors… These gradual changes were a further development in the natural evolution of that technique which Signac still regarded as “guided by tradition and science” (Floyd Ratliff, Paul Signac and Color in Neo-Impressionism, New York, 1992, p.16).

When Signac first visited Venice in 1904 and spent a month there, he produced a plethora of watercolors—totaling more than 200—detailing the magnificent views of the “ocean city.” Signac mentions in his own workbook that the offered work, Venise, San Giorgio, is one of two watercolor fans that the artist created from his sketches later that year in his studio. The Mediterranean sunlight, reflections of the water, ripples of the waves created a brilliant pastiche in which color theory and optics could be explored. At the same time the immediacy of his medium no doubt inspired a freer technique, visible in a loosening of brushstrokes in favor of longer, broader dashes, perhaps resembling the individual stones of Byzantine mosaics, which he surely encountered throughout the city.