Paul Signac’s etching (with aquatint), “Paris: Le Pont des Arts avec Remorquers”

Paul Signac (1863–1935)

“Paris: Le Pont des Arts avec Remorquers”, 1927, published in “Dix Peintres au XXe Siécle” in an edition of 250.

Etching and aquatint on cream wove paper (vellum) inscribed in the plate with the artist’s signature (lower right)

Size: (sheet) 23.9 x 32; (plate) 12.4 x 31.9 cm

Kornfeld & Wick 24 (Kornfeld, E W; Wick, P A, “Catalogue raisonné de l'Oeuvre gravé et lithographié de Paul Signac”, Bern, Kornfeld & Klipstein, 1974)

Spaightwood Galleries offer a fine description of this print and insights into its execution: http://www.spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/Signac.html

Condition: a marvellously rich impression in pristine condition with margins as published in a limited edition of 250.

I am selling this freely inscribed original etching by the famous Neo-Impressionist, Paul Signac, for AU$656 in total (currently US$499.77/EUR445.82/GBP385.86 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world. If you are interested in purchasing this etching by one of the great French masters, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

This is Signac’s last print and for me it is almost the antithesis of what he is fondly remembered for in terms of being one of the great masters of Neo-Impressionism; namely, artists who—according to Bernard Denvir (1991) in his hefty tome, “Impressionism: The Painters and the Paintings”—“concentrated on structure and a syntax of form” (p. 331). What I mean by this comment is that Signac is more famous for using dots of carefully adjusted tone and colour like Seurat, to give his artworks compositional strength, but in this image he has abandoned the principles of Pointillism in favour of freely laid lines expressing a fleeting glimpse of his subject. In short, this print is almost a repudiation of his earlier artistic practices, described by Denvir (1991) to “substitute an elaborate but logical technique for the haphazard impulses of spontaneity” (p. 298) in favour of simply enjoying the process of drawing without too many formal constraints. Of course, for Signac to draw with such confidence and spontaneity signals his many years of practical experience and ingrained knowledge.