Signac

This superb crayon portrait is of the artist (and author and anarchist) Paul Signac, born on this day in 1863. The portrait is by Seurat, with whom Signac worked in developing Pointillisme. He went on to work with many others, including Van Gogh, and to try his hand at various styles, with results that never achieved the greatness of Seurat at his concentrated best. Signac spread himself too thinly, and his works seldom rise above the interesting and/or pretty. Or so it seems to me. They do, however, fetch good money, which is why the Hotel Spaander in Volendam was delighted to discover recently that a view of the harbour that had long hung on a rusty nail in the lobby was a Signac, dashed off to pay his bill. It's reckoned to be worth 100,000 Euros today.