CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

This is the 10th in a series of ARTicles featuring newly restored paintings on display at the freshly renovated Marshalltown Arts & Civic Center (MACC). Each month a different painting will be featured.

In 1958, Bill and Dorothy Fisher gifted Marshalltown an extraordinary legacy; a stunning mid-century modern community center and a world class art collection highlighting the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

After 55 years, the community center and collection were both in need of restoration. In 2017, with the full support of the Fisher Family and the Fisher Governor Foundation. Committees were formed to write grants, digitize records, reach out to organizations and individuals for funding, and hire technical experts and consultants.

An on-site evaluation of the collection was completed the day before the EF3 tornado devastated the north side of Marshalltown and the appraisal of the collection was completed in 2018. A total of 44 artworks, (paintings and sculptures) were chosen for restoration.

In July 2020, the Chicago Conservation Center retrieved the identified works. The very next month, the community center, and much of Marshalltown, was decimated by a derecho. Restoration of the art was completed in 2021, and the Fisher Art Museum opened in September 2022.

Currently on display are approximately half of the paintings from the Fisher Art Collection. The others are resting in climate-controlled storage and will be on view in 2025.

Today’s featured artist is Paul Signac. Alongside other extraordinary works, his awaits you in the Fisher Art Museum.

Paul Signac was born in Paris in 1863. Living on the threshold of the 20th century, he was passionately aware of, and interested in, the nearly daily breakthroughs happening in mechanization, architecture, electricity, transportation, and medicine.

A gifted colorist whose work blended the technological advancements of his time with his own confident free spirit, in 1895, he stated, “The progress to be made is to rid ourselves of impossible imitation and become daring.”

He was associated with a number of well-known and influential artists, and for a time was a student of Claude Monet. Dreaming of a “science of art,” he eventually refused formal academic guidance, and furthered his education through self-study and associations with Henri Matisse and Vincent van Gogh. The influence of these relationships worked both ways, as his love of color and daring spirit became evident in their own works.

But the personal and professional relationship that most defines Signac is that with George Seurat, whom he met at an exhibition in Paris in 1884. Signac was intrigued by Seurat’s systematic methods and theory of color and together they began to experiment with juxtaposed small dots of pure color on canvas, intending for the eye to blend them when viewing. The method was scientific and the result was Pointillism, what today we may well call Pixellism.

Signac embraced Pointillism for a number of years, but eventually created his own signature style. The resulting decorative use of color and elements of Japanese design played a decisive role in the evolution of Fauvism.

In addition to painting, Signac authored several influential books on art and became an accomplished builder and navigator. His final years were spent on the then unknown island of St. Tropez, where he enjoyed life on the water and painting what inspired him.

His jubilant 1923 oil on canvas painting, L’odet a Quimper, (The River Odet in Quimper), (note: the French title of ptg needs an accent on the a!) is a visual testament to his love of the science of painting and color, applied to a scene of boats and water.

Paul Signac died from sepsis in 1935, at 71 years of age.

Treat yourself to a visit to the MACC and soak in the colorful beauty that awaits you. Call 641.758.3005 or visit www.maccia.org for more information.

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Nancy Jeanne Adams is a member of the Fisher Art Museum Committee.