LOT Phillips de Pury & Company  /  IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART PART II  / 

102

PAUL SIGNAC (1863-1935) La cale de St. Pierre-Kerity signed "P. Signac" (lower right), inscribed ...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:15,000.00 - 20,000.00 USD
PAUL SIGNAC (1863-1935) La cale de St. Pierre-Kerity signed P. Signac (lower right), inscribed ...
PAUL SIGNAC
(1863-1935)
La cale de St. Pierre-Kerity
signed "P. Signac" (lower right),
inscribed and dated
"La cale de St. Pierre Kerity/
10 Juin 29" (lower left)
watercolor and pencil on paper
laid down on card
10 5/8 x 17 1/8 in. (27.5 x 43 cm)
executed in 1929
Estimate: $15,000-20,000 <p>Provenance
Gaston Lévy, Paris
Private Collection, New York
Freed of the formal constraints of the Divisionism that dominated Signac's work in oil, his watercolors have a spontaneous character that is immediately striking. Nowhere does the art of drawing and vigorous application of watercolor create a more perfect balance of pictorial energy. Throughout his life, Signac traveled around France in search of the most compositionally satisfactory motifs, producing a formidable body of work in this medium. These watercolors changed little from the period when Signac met Van Gogh in the 1880s until Signac's death in 1935, and they must, therefore, be regarded as the most consistent aspect of his oeuvre. If anything, his strongest watercolors date from the last years of his life, when his devotion to the medium had resulted in decades of an ever-increasing virtuosity of technique. Some of these works share elements with the art of Guillaumin, who is represented with a fine pastel in this sale (lot 4).
The Signac watercolors in this sale were part of the Gaston Lévy Collection. Lévy was a businessman and the founder of the Monoprix department stores in France. He was a passionate collector and owned works by Monet, Pissarro, Kees van Dongen, Pierre Bonnard, and Edouard Vuillard, among others. Gaston Lévy commissioned Signac's ambitious project, Ports de France, a major series of watercolors depicting the harbors of France. The six watercolors in this sale are from this series.
Sign In to Bookmark Lot