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INVENTORY OF THE PAUL SIGNAC LETTERS AND SIGNAC FAMILY
CORRESPONDENCE, 1860-1935
870524
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Table of contents
Title: Paul Signac letters and Signac family
correspondence
Date (inclusive): 1860-1935
Collection number: 870524
Creator:
Signac, Paul, 1863-1935
Extent:
93 items
Repository:
Getty Research Institute
Research Library
Special Collections and Visual Resources
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA
90049-1688
Abstract: Letters from French painter Paul Signac to several colleagues discussing work in progress, exhibitions, contemporary art,
the Société des Artistes Indépendants, and personal and financial matters. A significant number addressed to Edouard Fer,
a neo-impressionist disciple whose independent means and connections enabled him to promote Signac's career. Other correspondents
include Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Georges Turpin, Henri Martineau, Georges Lecomte, and Luc-Albert Moreau. Most of the
letters are Signac family correspondence; some of these are addressed by Paul Signac to his cousins.
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Language: Collection material in French
Open for use by qualified researchers.
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Library Rights and Reproductions
Paul Signac letters and Signac family
correspondence 1860-1935, Getty Research Institute, Research Library, Accession no. 870524.
Acquired in 1987.
Parisian painter Paul Signac (1863-1935), a founder of the Salon des
Indépendants, developed with Georges Seurat the technique of
pointillism, or divisionism, and was a principal adherent and spokesman for the
Neo-Impressionist movement. He was the author of the books
D'Eugène Delacroix au néo-impressionnisme
(1899) and
Jongkind (1927).
Scope and Content of Collection
The Paul Signac Letters and Signac Family Correspondence contains
letters from Signac to several colleagues discussing work in progress,
exhibitions, contemporary art, the Société des Artistes
Indépendants, and personal and financial matters. A significant number
of these letters are addressed to Edouard Fer, a neo-Impressionist disciple
whose independent means and connections enabled him to promote Signac's career.
Other correspondents include Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Georges Turpin,
Henri Martineau, Georges Lecomte, and Luc-Albert Moreau. There is also a draft
essay for a review of the Exposition des peintres provençaux held in
1902. Most of the letters in this collection are Signac family correspondence;
some of these are addressed by Paul Signac to his cousins. (The repository also
holds a significant series of Signac's correspondence within the papers of Theo
van Rysselberghe, accn. no. 870305.)
In his thirty-five letters to Edouard Fer (1916-1932, bulk 1918-1921)
Signac discusses the organization of exhibitions, mostly in Switzerland, and
the critical reaction to his own work. He does not forget to offer Fer the
occasional bit of advice. Other letters include ten to Pissarro (1886-1899) in
one of which he comments on Pissarro's stylistic evolution and his own recent
landscape painting in the Midi (1897); a letter that recounts the formation of
the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1884 with mention
of Redon, Seurat, and Theodore Rousseau; a letter to Georges Lecomte where
Signac comments on Symbolism, Puvis de Chavannes, Maximilien Luce, and
Lecomte's recent work; a letter from Brussels describing at great length a
visit to a foundry (1897); two notes to Henri Martineau pertaining to Signac's
study of Stendal (1919, 1928); one letter to an unnamed critic thanking him for
a favorable article and describing Signac's trips to Brittany and Provence
(1933); and one fragment of a letter in response to an enquete on interior
decorating.
A draft essay of a review of the Exposition des Peintres
Provençaux held in Marseilles in 1902, includes an introductory
statement on the exhibition followed by remarks characterizing the work of
individual painters including Jean Antoine Constantin, Emile Loubon, Auguste
Aiguier, Gustave Ricard, Adolphe Monticelli, and Paul Guigou.
Signac family correspondence deals with family life, children,
illness, vacations, money worries, marriages, divorces and so forth. A small
number of these are written by Paul Signac to his cousins. The rest are between
other family members. Most of the letters seem to be about Julie and Alfred
Signac's family—Paul Signac's aunt and uncle. Included are letters from his
grandmother, grandfather, and cousins.
Arrangement
Arranged in one series.
Aiguier, Louis Auguste
Lauren, 1819-1865
Constantin, Jean-Antoine,
1756-1844
Guigou, Paul, 1834-1871
Loubon, Emile,
1809-1863
Luce, Maximilien,
1858-1941
Monticelli, Adolphe,
1824-1886
Puvis de Chavannes,
Pierre, 1824-1898
Redon, Odilon, 1840-1916
Ricard, Gustave,
1823-1873
Rousseau,
Théodore, 1812-1867;
Seurat, Georges,
1859-1891
Signac, Paul, 1863-1935
Société des
artistes indépendants (Paris, France)
Exposition de peintres
provencaux (Marseilles, France)
Art—Exhibitions
Interior decoration
Neo-impressionism (Art)
Painting, Modern—19th
century—France
Painting, Modern—20th
century—France
Symbolism (Art
movement)
Fer, Edouard, 1887-1959
Guillemot, Maurice
Lecomte, Georges,
1867-1958
Martineau, Henri,
1882-1958
Moreau, Luc-Albert,
1882-1948
Pissarro, Camille,
1830-1903
Turpin, Georges,
1885-