The Town Beach, Collioure, Opus 165

Painted in 1887 with opus number 165 and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this view of the Mediterranean beach at Collioure on the French-Spanish border exemplifies Signac's early Neo-Impressionist approach to sun-saturated southern coastal scenes. Collioure, which would later become famous as the birthplace of Fauvism when Matisse and Derain worked there in 1905, was already attracting avant-garde painters in the 1880s. Signac's painting preceded Matisse's celebrated Collioure canvases by nearly two decades, demonstrating the town's long history as a site of chromatic experimentation.

The Mediterranean beach scene exploits a high-key palette of turquoise, cobalt, and warm sand tones, with fishing boats providing warm orange and red accents. The systematic dots create a shimmering quality appropriate to harsh southern sunlight. Figures are simplified into colour masses integrated into the overall chromatic pattern.