Signac as Collector as the Musée d’Orsay

Event Description

Beyond what they have created themselves, there is a growing interest in the works of art that artists chose to collect. Throughout his life, renowned Neo-Impressionist painter Paul Signac collected works of art, to the point of assembling a collection of nearly 300 paintings and drawings, not to mention Japanese prints, ceramics and rare books. Thanks to the meticulous archives of the Signac Foundation, we have access to a classic example of an artist’s collection, with an inventory of every aspect of the Signac’s viewpoint and preferences revealed through his notebooks and correspondence.

Self-taught, Signac learned his trade by looking at the Impressionists, in particular the works of Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Gustave Caillebotte and Armand Guillaumin, most of whom feature in his collection. In this fascinating exhibition, the Musée d’Orsay explores the friendships and personal choices Signac made, such as a landscape by Paul Cézanne, his first-ever acquisition in what would one day become an important, world-class collection.