In 1913, Paul Signac and his partner, painter Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange settled together in Antibes. Signac’s departure from his villa in Saint-Tropez marked the beginning of what would become a prolonged wart.mes sojourn on the northern Riviera. The works from this period, though few in number, are among the artist’s greatest mature compositions. Executed in 1917, Antibes. La Pointe de Bacon exemplifies the chromatic richness and compositional harmony which characterize this intense period of artistic growth.
“[Signac] tells us the most powerful and delicate secrets of his inebriation before nature, his love for the wonders filling the sky and earth.”
An avid mariner, Signac’s life was defined by his proximity to waterways (see fig. 1), his body of work a test.mes nt to the far-reaching destinations and varied port towns visited along his journeys. Though the onset of the First World War curtailed Signac’s travels, and ultimately his artistic output, the environs of Antibes provided ample fodder for pictorial exploration. Among his impressive oeuvre, it is the carefully composed depictions of coastlines—each a balance of nature, edifice and vessel—which prove the most successful.
Antibes. La Pointe de Bacon embodies such formal harmony, abounding in brilliant jewel tones and exuding a luminous, even effervescent atmosphere. Executed near the namesake Pointe de Bacon, the present work depicts a bay overlooking the famed Château Grimaldi (see fig. 2), a medieval fortress-turned palace and present home to Antibes’ Musée Picasso. At the fore, a copse of trees frames the distant chateau and echoes the shape of the lone sailboat at center. The masterful balance of vertical and curvilinear forms within the composition also speaks to the dialogue between the natural and manmade realms depicted.
In contrast to his earlier campaign in the region (see fig. 3), the paintings from 1914-18 such as Antibes. La Pointe de Bacon witness a radical enlivening in palette and handling. A highly disciplined theoretician, Signac regularly experimented in his work, occasionally working on multiple compositions of the same subject simultaneously to explore the effects of varied palettes and paint application, much like that of his idol Claude Monet (see figs. 4 and 5).
Inspired in his early career by Monet’s revolutionary Impressionist works, Signac later captured a kindred resplendence in his own Antibes works. It was the same blazing light of the French Riviera that awed and challenged Monet in the 1880s which also provided endless pictorial opportunities for Signac in the evolution of his daring Neo-Impressionist techniques.
Right: Fig. 5 Claude Monet, Antibes vue de la Salis, 1888, sold: Replica Shoes ’s, New York, May 2024 for $14.1 million
By the t.mes the present work was painted in 1917, Signac had developed his artistic style far beyond the strict tenets of Neo-Impressionism first adopted from Georges Seurat in Paris in the 1880s (see fig. 6). Signac had liberated his color palette, daring to blend the pure pigments seen in earlier works, and broadened his approach while still retaining the main characteristics of Divisionism through his pointed application of brushstrokes. Epitomized by Antibes. La Pointe de Bacon, this mature style was characterized by a subtle exploration of the nuances of light combined with an enticing chromatic richness.
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Such investigations reveal Signac’s pictorial advancement during this period, the comparatively lengthened brushstrokes and increased space between daubs of paint creating a mosaic-like effect in his compositions. The resulting paintings from these pivotal years, including Antibes. La Pointe de Bacon, exhibit an enhanced chromatic richness and luminosity not seen in compositions from the early 1900s.
“The late works of Signac are the culmination of many years of reflection, theorizing, and practice… In the best of his later works Signac combined the sensual legacy of his first pictures with the cool rationality of Neo-Impressionism to create an art of extraordinary chromatic richness and feeling.”
Despite the tumult of the t.mes , Signac’s works from 1914-18 show no trace of the disaster or disruption of war. Though the reality of the t.mes proved harsher—the art market all but evaporated, Signac painted relatively little and, out of solidarity with younger artists sent to the front, he refused to participate in the Paris Salon des Indépendants—compositions like Antibes. La Pointe de Bacon exude an atemporal and almost defiant sense of freshness, tranquility and harmony.
One of fewer than twenty finished compositions from the wart.mes period, Antibes. La Pointe de Bacon stands among the largest and most accomplished of those remaining in private hands. Shortly after its completion, the present work was acquired from Signac by his friends and fellow artists, Juliette and Louis Cambier.
Juliette studied with her husband Louis under Maurice Denis, Paul Sérusier and Edouard Vuillard at the Académie Ranson in Paris, at which t.mes the Cambiers likely first.mes t Signac. After the couple moved to Cagnes at the onset of the war, their friendship with the elder artist deepened, with Signac affectionately referring to the pair as “Tante Ju” and “Bobby” in correspondence. In February 1918, Signac wrote the introduction to an exhibition dedicated to the Cambiers’ work in which he praised Juliette, comparing her work (see fig. 7) to that of Pierre Bonnard and naturalist poet Francis Jammes. Around this t.mes Juliette and Louis acquired the present work from Signac, along with the 1918 painting Les Allées. Cannes. The Cambiers' ownership of Antibes. La Pointe de Bacon, like their friendship with Signac, continued well into the following decades.
Signac in Antibes 1914-18: Wart.mes Paintings in Museum collects ions
A masterpiece from the artist’s rarefied wart.mes period, Antibes. La Pointe de Bacon belongs to the limited suite of works numbering fewer than 20 finished paintings in total. Other paintings from this period are held in the institutional collects ions of The National Museum, Warsaw, the Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki and the Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg among others. Held in the same family collects ion for 70 years, Antibes. La Pointe de Bacon comes to auction for the very first t.mes .
