SIGNAC PAUL: (1863-1935) French Neo-Impressionist Painter. A very fine A.L.S., Paul Signac, two pages, 4to, n.p. ...

SIGNAC PAUL: (1863-1935) French Neo-Impressionist Painter. A very fine A.L.S., Paul Signac, two pages, 4to, n.p., [Paris], 20th June 1934, to a friend, Eugene Dabit, in French. Signac announces his departure to Barfleur in Normandy, and states in part `Je pars demain pour Barfleur, à côté de Cherbourg, où nous attend notre petite maison de granit.. et où il y a toujours un homard femelle et une paire de soles pour les amis…´ (''I'm leaving tomorrow for Barfleur, near Cherbourg, where our little granite house awaits us... and where there's always a female lobster and a pair of soles for friends...'') Signac further congratulates his correspondent and makes a poetic but harsh comment on some French writers, saying in part `J´ai lu ces jours-ci ''L´Ile'', et je suis heureux que vous ayez ajouté quelques nouvelles figures de marins à mon repertoire. Vos pêcheurs de l´île sont vivants, humains, très particuliers. Ils n´ont rien de moco, ni de Breton… encore moins des ''marins'' de nos litterateurs faibles chiens de terriers. Je les clase à côté de ceux de…´ (''I have been reading over the last days ''The Island'' and I'm glad you've added some new sailor figures to my repertoire. Your fishermen on the island are alive, human, very particular. They have nothing of ''moco'', nor Breton… and even less of the ''sailors'' of our weak literary terrier dogs. I classify them next to those of…'') Very small remnants of former paper affixed to the lower left corner of the second page, not affecting the text or signature, otherwise G to VG Eugene Dabit (1898-1936) French Writer. He was part of the group ''Poletarian Literature''. He obtained a large success with his novel ''L´Hôtel du Nord'', a work which was filmed by Marcel Carné. L´Ile, (''The Island'') was a work by Dabit which was published in 1934 and refers to fishermen from the Spanish island of Minorque. Dabit was a close colleague and friend of André Gide, sharing political socialist point of view. He died of an illness at the early age of 37 and while he was accompanying Gide to the Soviet Union.