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Artist or Maker: Paul Signac (1863-1935)
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Provenance: Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, 1908-1920.
Gaston Lévy, Paris and Lyon, 1930.
Galerie Marseille, Paris.
Dr A. Roudinesco, Paris; his sale, Sotheby's, New York, 10 October 1968, lot 12.
Mr and Mrs Imre Rosenthal, New York.
Private collection, Europe.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.
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Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, L'eau', June - July 1911, no. 77.
Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Exposition Paul Signac, November - December 1913.
1913, no. 16; this exhibtion later travelled to Dusseldorf, Galerie Flechtheim.
Lyon, Exposition Internationale de Lyon, 1914, no. 390.
Venice, XIIe Biennale, 1920, no. 61.
Venice, XVII Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte, 1930, no. 130.
London, Wildenstein Galleries, Seurat and his contemporaries, 1937, no. 84.
Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Chefs-d'Oeuvre de Collections Françaises, 1962, no. 98 (illustrated).
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Literature: G. Lecomte, 'Exposition Paul Signac. Une carrière et un caractère', in Le Matin, 26 January 1911, p. 5.
L. de Saint-Valéry, 'La technique de Paul Signac', in La Revue des Beaux-Arts, 7 December 1913, p. 4.
E. Fer, 'Paul Signac', in le Petit Niçois, 20 August 1935, p. 2.
L. Hautecoeur, Paul Signac, Paris, 1971 (illustrated p. 80).
M. Ferretti-Boquillon, 'Paul Signac au temps d'Harmonie 1895-1913', in Signac et la libération de la couleur, Münster, 1996, p. 67-68.
F. Cachin, Signac, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Paris, 2000, no. 467 (illustrated p. 288).
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Notes: THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTOR
Paul Signac had two great passions: painting, and boats. Whenever possible, Signac enthusiastically combined these two passions, relishing every chance that he had to paint the great ports and maritime cities of Europe, to which he would often sail in his own boat. Painted in 1908, Mouillage de la Giudecca, Venise shows boats under way and anchored, a busy scene of commerce and entertainment around La Serenissima. During 1908, Signac had undertaken an extensive tour of Italy with his wife. Venice was one of the last stops in the tour before their return to the South of France. This journey had reawakened Signac to the wonders of many of the Old Masters in each of the cities that he had visited, not least now in Venice. Mouillage de la Giudecca, Venise shows the artist capturing the light effects of the city through his Neo-Impressionist means, while also paying tribute to artists such as Canaletto. Here, Signac shows the docking area in front of the Giudecca, although the Giudecca itself is not visible: instead, we see the point of the Dogana at the entrance to the Grand Canal on the left, and Palladio's wonderful San Giorgio Maggiore to the right.
The painterly surface of Mouillage de la Giudecca, Venise reveals the free handling of the artist, who had a love of oils that surpassed his love of Pointillism. As a self-taught painter, Signac reveled in being an instinctual painter, and this resulted in an increasing exuberance in his works, especially after the death of his friend and mentor, the more rigidly scientific Seurat. In Mouillage de la Giudecca, Venise we see the truth of his assertion that aesthetics, rather than science, were important to him: 'The division is a complex system of harmony, an aesthetic rather than a technique. The point is but a means' (Signac, D'Eugène Delacroix au néo-impressionnisme, ed. F. Cachin, Paris 1978, p. 119). In Mouillage de la Giudecca, Venise, the artist presents the viewer with an image of the Venetian lagoon that is filled with joy, with a pure enthusiasm for the scene in all its aspects: this area is filled with action, with boats, while the light effects of the sky and the sun beaming down onto San Giorgio Maggiore pose an intriguing challenge for the artist, one for which he is more than a match.
That this painting was a success is clear from the enthusiasm with which it was received in its early exhibitions. Indeed, in 1911 the prominent art critic, novelist and later Perpetual Secretary of the Académie Française, Georges Lecomte, celebrated this painting in particular in an article on Signac, praising its 'brilliant majesty and supreme equilibrium' (G. Lecomte, 'Exposition Paul Signac. Une carrière et un caractère', in Le Matin, 26 January 1911, p. 5).
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