"Signac. Symphony of Colours" - Curator Joris Westerink on the Signac Exhibition at Kunsthal

Starting Saturday, October 24, Kunsthal Rotterdam presents a major retrospective of French painter Paul Signac (1863-1935). Kunsthal curator Joris Westerink visits Van Cappellenhuis to discuss the artist, his work, and the making of "Signac. Symphony of Colours".

Signac was a painter, theorist, networker, and driving force behind neo-impressionism. The exhibition features over ninety works by him and his contemporaries. In his lecture, Westerink traces Signac's development through harbor scenes, landscapes, and portraits, showing how Signac also played a key role as a writer, collector, and mentor in the international spread of the movement.

Central to neo-impressionism is the technique of pointillism: painters do not mix colors but place them in dots and dabs side by side, allowing the eye to blend them optically. Complementary colors - orange next to blue, red next to green - strengthen each other and give the work a bright, vibrant effect. Signac applied this style to portraits, landscapes, and seascapes; as a passionate sailor, he explored European coasts by boat, from Normandy and Brittany to Dutch and Belgian harbors and the Mediterranean south.

The Kunsthal exhibition also features work by contemporaries he influenced, including Belgians Alfred William Finch, Henry van de Velde, and Théo van Rysselberghe, and female neo-impressionists such as Anna Boch, Lucie Cousturier, and Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange, whose role in the movement had long been overlooked.