The Tugboat, Canal in Samois

Born to well-to-do Parisian merchants, Signac had the good fortune to be financially independent throughout his lifetime. From 1882 onward he began painting full-time. As he had virtually no formal training, his early work derived from his study of Impressionism, and his personal acquaintance with a number of the movement’s major protagonists. A meeting with Georges Seurat in 1884 resulted in his …