Signac (Paul) - Lot 88

Signac (Paul) Jongkind (1819-1891). Les Éditions G. Crès & Cie, Paris, 1927. Illustrations reproducing works and documents by Johann Barthold Jongkind. First edition, dedicated to the memory of Henri-Edmond Cross (26.5 x 19 cm). Publisher's binding: Soft cream boards, illustrated dust jacket (chemise-étui, green morocco spine, green paper with abstract motifs, P. Goy et C. Vilaine). Unique copy featuring a superb large original watercolor by Signac (Le Pont des Saints-Pères) in the frontispiece, taking up the entire front cover of the copy dedicated to Léon Deshairs and his wife. "To all Deshairs friends, P. Signac". Léon Deshairs (1874-1967), curator of the library and later director of the École des Arts Décoratifs, was an art historian and writer whose works include those on Picasso, Charles Despiau, Gustave Moreau, Louis Jourdan and architecture. Johann Barthold Jongkind is still relatively unknown, despite his etchings, which seem to herald Impressionism half a dozen years ahead of its time: "Un Monet en blanc et noir" (L'Estampe impressionniste, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 1974). "With him, everything lies in the print", wrote Castagnary as early as 1863, in L'Artiste, about the Salon des Refusés. In 1927, it was Signac's monograph that helped him avoid the oblivion that still envelops many of his contemporaries, such as Desboutin, Appian, Legros, Guérard and even Bracquemond. In 1927, Paul Signac (1863-1935) was the last surviving founder of Neo-Impressionism. Self-taught, unlike Seurat, he began painting at the age of 19, initially influenced by Édouard Manet and Armand Guillaumin, whom he had just met. That year, he painted the names of Manet, Zola and Wagner on the bow of his first boat. As early as 1892, he took an interest in watercolor, which he used for a series of views of Paris bridges, such as this one of the Pont des Saints-Pères, and numerous seascapes and harbor views. His monograph on Jongkind, almost thirty years after D'Eugène Delacroix au néo-impressionnisme, enabled him to develop his own concepts as a watercolorist into a veritable treatise on the subject. Like the present Jongkind, the first major monograph devoted to Signac was published in 1924 by Lucie Couturier (Editions Crès). Signac dedicated the present work to another great neo-impressionist, Henri-Edmond Cross (1856-1910). Provenance: Léon Deshairs.