JEANNE SELMERSHEIM-DESGRANGE French, 1877-1958

Born into a family of artists, Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange was a descendant of the Second Empire decorator Gabriel Toudouze. She grew up in an environment where drawing held a central place. Trained in decorative arts from an early age, she began by creating objects and jewelry alongside her first husband, the architect Pierre Selmersheim, a major figure in the revival of decorative arts around 1900. After an initial period devoted to applied arts, she returned to painting and found in the Divisionist technique a mode of expression fully suited to her sensibility.

From 1909 onwards, she exhibited regularly at the Salon des Indépendants, joining the Neo-Impressionist group founded in the 1880s around Georges Seurat (1859–1891), Paul Signac (1863–1935), Camille Pissarro (1830–1903), and their companions. She thus became part of the second generation of the movement, alongside Maximilien Luce (1858–1941), Hippolyte Petitjean (1854–1929), Théo Van Rysselberghe (1862–1926), Henry Van de Velde (1863–1957), and, among female artists, Lucie Couturier (1870–1925). In 1909, she received the prize of the Société d’encouragement à l’art et à l’industrie for her work as a painter.

Around 1912, she began a romantic relationship with Paul Signac (1863–1935), painter and theorist of Neo-Impressionism. Their partnership lasted until Signac’s death in 1935, combining personal intimacy with creative exchanges. From this union was born a daughter, Ginette, in 1913, whom Signac had his wife, Berthe, adopt, since he never divorced her, thereby allowing the child to be legally recognized as his daughter. For Jeanne, this affair—begun while she was married and the mother of three children—led to the dissolution of her previous family commitments. Together, they traveled across France, from the Mediterranean to Brittany, and sometimes stayed in vacation homes, where Jeanne painted garden scenes and still lifes.

This period alongside Signac allowed Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange to dedicate herself fully to painting and refine her Divisionist technique. Inspired by the principles formulated by Seurat and promoted by Signac, she employed optical color mixing, the separation of elements in a painting (local color, light, shadows), and the balance of contrasts. Her brushwork, broader than that of the pioneers, aligned with the evolution of Neo-Impressionism at the beginning of the 20th century. Her oils and watercolors demonstrate great mastery of light and color harmonies, featuring Mediterranean landscapes, ports, views of Provence, Brittany, and Ardèche, as well as still lifes and intimate scenes—set tables or windows opening onto gardens—introducing a domestic and contemplative register. Her watercolors stand out for their transparency and precision in capturing variations of light.

Although her public career remained discreet, Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange made a significant contribution to the preservation and renewal of Neo-Impressionism in the 20th century. Her correspondence, archives, and works document a constant artistic commitment and a confirmed mastery of light and color.

She exhibited her works in both solo and group exhibitions from the beginning of the 20th century. Her solo exhibitions include those of 1901 (Charles Hessèle, Paris), 1931 (Galerie Jacques Rodrigues-Henriques, Paris), and 1967 (Saint-Jeoire-en-Faucigny, organized by Paul Gay). She also participated in numerous salons and collective exhibitions: Salon des Beaux-Arts (1901, 1904), Salon des Artistes Décorateurs (1907), Salon des Indépendants (1911–1914, 1939), Trente ans d’Art Indépendant (1926), as well as posthumous or thematic exhibitions in the 20th century in Paris, Brussels, New York, and Saint-Tropez.