Except for drawing classes, Signac had little formal art training. His early works were in the Impressionist style, chiefly influenced by Monet. When Signac met Georges Seurat, he became Seurat's most enthusiastic supporter of experiments in Pointillism, or Neo-Impressionism. This technique of using minute, juxtaposed dots of pure pigment gives the viewer at a distance the optical illusion of seeing other solid colors. After Seurat's death, Signac became the acknowledged leader of Pointillism.
Signac traveled widely and much of his work is marked by his passionate love for the sea, which he surveyed from yachts that he himself might have been steering.
