Paul Victor Jules Signac was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style. Signac decided to pursue a career as a painter at age 18 after attending an exhibit of Monet’s work. A few years later he met Claude Monet and Georges Seurat. Under Seurat’s influence, he abandoned the short brushstrokes of impressionism to experiment with scientifically-juxtaposed small dots of pure color, intended to combine and blend not on the canvas, but in the viewer’s eye, the defining feature of Pointillism. Signac went on to paint scenes of the French coast and loved to paint water. He also befriended Vincent van Gogh and they regular traveled to Asnieres-sur-Seine together where they painted river landscapes and cafes. He experimented with various media including oil paintings, watercolors, etchings, lithographs, and many pen-and-ink sketches composed of small, laborious dots.
