MURA · THE COLLECTION · PAUL SIGNAC

Notre Dame

Notre Dame is a watercolour by Paul Signac from 1910, showing the cathedral and the Seine in Paris. It is painted with graphite on white laid paper and measures 26.5 by 38.9 cm. It came to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949 from the collection of the photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

Paul Signac · 1910 · Watercolor, with graphite, on white laid paper, laid down on white wove paper · story written 25 September 2026

What you are looking at

The catalogue entry describes Notre-Dame and the Seine dissolving into airy strokes of blue, lavender and soft gold. The museum records the medium as watercolour with graphite, laid down on a second sheet of wove paper.

How it was painted

Signac was born in Paris in 1863 and, as he said, preferred drawing the Seine to the architecture his parents had in mind for him. With Georges Seurat he helped develop pointillism in the 1880s. He experimented with many media: alongside oil paintings and watercolours he made etchings, lithographs and pen-and-ink sketches built from small dots. A keen sailor, he is best known for seascapes and views of ports and rivers, and the Mediterranean coast was a major theme; he left Paris each summer for Collioure or Saint-Tropez. By 1910 he had been president of the Société des Artistes Indépendants for two years, a post he held until his death in 1935.

Where it went

The sheet belonged to Alfred Stieglitz, the New York photographer and gallery owner who introduced many avant-garde European artists to the United States. After his death in 1946 his estate, with his widow Georgia O'Keeffe as executor, gave it to the Art Institute in 1949; it carries the credit line Alfred Stieglitz Collection. It had been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947 in Alfred Stieglitz: His Collection, and at the Art Institute in February 1948 in Alfred Stieglitz: His Photographs and Collection. The museum lists no current gallery for it.

Why it is in Mura

It belongs to Mura's Impressionist Life collection with a luminous mood: Paris seen through water and light.