A French Post-Impressionist and master of pointillism, Paul Signac is at the LAC in Lugano with 140 works including canvases, watercolours, drawings and prints. Colours and landscapes that offer a quiet joy.
With precise and harmonious brushstrokes, vivid colours and somewhat dreamlike atmospheres, the canvases of Paul Signac in Lugano offer landscapes full of grace and painterly mastery. A leading figure of French Post-Impressionism who expressed himself at the highest level through the technique of pointillism. The exhibition Paul Signac. Riflessi sull'acqua in Switzerland, presented by the Masi, Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana, and on show at the LAC until 8 January, is a precious gem not to be missed.
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Paul Signac was born in Paris in 1863, where he spent most of his life, and died in 1935. While still young, he moved to the Montmartre district and had frequent occasion to visit the neighbourhood's many artists' studios, becoming so captivated by them that he decided to abandon his studies in architecture and devote himself entirely to art.
From the very beginning his painting technique was in constant evolution and underwent various changes: in particular, the encounter with Georges Seurat in 1884 in Paris, made possible through his connections with certain figures from the Impressionist group, proved decisive. In those years Signac became one of Seurat's rare friends and, together with Odilon Redon, the two artists founded the Société des artistes indépendants, launching the movement of Neo-Impressionism the following year. Under Seurat's influence, Signac abandoned the short, rapid Impressionist brushstroke to experiment with pointillisme (pointillism), a painting technique characterised by the construction of an image through small touches of pure colour, grounded in scientific research into optical phenomena.
Signac also became a point of reference for many figures of the next generation of artists working within Fauvism and Cubism. He never stopped experimenting and, partly thanks to his travels — first to Brittany and then to Saint-Tropez (he was one of the first artists to discover this port), which led him to new means of expression — he fell in love with watercolour, which he used extensively, allowing him to work outdoors and bringing a sense of lightness and freshness to his works.
The exhibition Paul Signac. Reflections on Water, on display at the LAC in Lugano, offers a comprehensive overview of the painter's artistic evolution, retracing the phases that marked his shifts in style. Through a chronological and thematic itinerary, the many facets of a man in love with colour are revealed.
From his earliest Impressionist paintings to the final watercolours of the Ports de France series, by way of the heroic years of Neo-Impressionism, the radiance of Saint-Tropez, the shimmering images of Venice, Rotterdam and Constantinople. The Impressionist fervour of his beginnings is thus set against the clear polychromy of Divisionism, the bold Japonisme of the watercolours contrasts with the freedom of sheets painted en plein air, while the large preparatory drawings in ink-wash reveal the secrets of serene compositions, long pondered in the studio. The exhibition illustrates the artist's privileged relationship with this technique across the years, through to his last great project, carried out between 1929 and 1931 under the title Ports de France — a roving exploration that crowned his career as a watercolourist.
The exhibition is a gem not to be missed, bringing together over 140 works, including paintings, drawings, watercolours and prints, from an exceptional art collection and one of the most important privately held groups of the artist's work in existence.
The exhibition is open until 8 January; opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–18:00; Thursday until 20:00; closed Monday. Admission costs 15 Swiss francs.