PAUL SIGNAC
(Paris, 1863 – 1935)
The Collapse of the State
Signed lower left: P. Signac
Pen, ink, and wash on paper
9 ¾ x 24 ½ inches (25 x 32 cm)
Provenance:
George and Sarah King, New York, until 2024.
Literature:
Publications de “La Révolte” et “Temps Nouveaux”, no. 35, (25 July 1925).
One of the leading figures of Neo-Impressionism, Paul Signac initially studied architecture before devoting himself to painting at the age of eighteen. He lacked formal training but closely studied the works of Manet and his Impressionist contemporaries. The coloristic and compositional tenets of Impressionism impacted his development, as is evident in his early works. During the inaugural Salon des Indépendants in May 1884—a pivotal moment for art history and for Signac himself—the artist met Georges Seurat. Under their auspices Pointillism and Neo-Impressionism were born.
Along with his devotion to new artistic developments, Signac was also quite politically minded. Along with other artists like Camille Pissarro and Maximilien Luce, as well as the critic Felix Fénéon, he maintained close links with anarcho-communists led by the French writer and editor of Les Temps Nouveaux, Jean Grave. Signac and other Neo-Impressionists contributed illustrations to the journal in its quest to broadly convey anarchist propaganda. Our work was reproduced on the cover of the publications La Révolte et Les Temps Nouveaux the 25th of July of 1925, but the drawing is believed to date to 1905-1908.[1]
In this watercolor, swirling plumes of smoke arise from demolished buildings and razed villages; a flock of birds flees in panic while a dark figure hangs from a noose; and a dog howls over the corpse of his owner. Death and destruction star in this post-apocalyptic version of the artist’s Antibes’ landscapes. As such, the usually organized chaos of Signac’s compositions loses its aesthetic rhythm and is transformed into jarring visual noise.
[1] Herbert, Robert L., and Eugenia W. Herbert. “Artists and Anarchism: Unpublished Letters of Pissarro, Signac and Others - I.” The Burlington Magazine 102, no. 692 (1960): 473–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/873246.