Rotes Dach

Arthur Segal prints bring the work of a Romanian-born painter who sat at the center of Europe's avant-garde, from Berlin's Expressionists to the Dada circle in Zurich. Segal split his pictures into grids of equal parts so that no corner mattered more than another, then later broke color into prism-like facets. Our collection offers art prints of his landscapes, still lifes, self-portraits, figure scenes and woodcuts.

About Arthur Segal

Arthur Segal was born in 1875 in Iași, Romania, and grew up in Botoșani as the son of a Jewish banker. In 1892 he moved to Berlin to study under the landscape painter Eugen Bracht, then trained in Paris and in Munich. His early paintings followed Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, shaped by Adolf Hölzel's ideas about color and, from 1908, by Van Gogh.

He settled in Berlin in 1904 and in 1910 helped found the Neue Secession, a group of artists who broke away from the Berlin Secession. When the First World War began, Segal, a pacifist, moved his family to Ascona in Switzerland. His house there became a meeting place for exiled artists such as Hans Arp, Marianne von Werefkin and Alexej Jawlensky, and he showed work with the Dadaists at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich.

Segal returned to Berlin in 1920, joined the board of the Novembergruppe and ran a painting school in Charlottenburg until 1933. Barred from exhibiting in Germany because he was Jewish, he left for Mallorca in 1933 and then London, where he opened the Arthur Segal Painting School in 1936. In 1937 the Nazis seized nine of his paintings from German museums as "degenerate" art. He died in London in 1944.

Style and Subjects

The key to Arthur Segal's paintings is an idea he called equivalence. From about 1916 he divided his canvases into a grid of equal rectangles and gave every section the same weight, avoiding a single focal point or central perspective.

From around 1922 he moved into what he called prismatic painting, building pictures from faceted forms that join shape, color and light, much as Robert Delaunay and the Futurists did. He also made woodcuts from 1910 on, many of them against the war. His subjects stay close to everyday life: harbors, village streets, working people, still lifes of books and jugs, and a long run of self-portraits.

Famous Works

• Adam and Eve (1918), Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena. A typical equivalence picture on burlap, with the whole surface divided so every part carries equal intensity.
• Helgoland (1923), Berlinische Galerie, Berlin. One of his views of the North Sea island of Helgoland, which he visited with his family.
• Street in Helgoland II, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A road on Helgoland broken into Cubist grids and Futurist splinters, with the faceted surface carried onto the frame.
• Harbor on Bornholm (1928), Tate, London. A harbor scene from the Danish Baltic island, painted at the height of his prismatic period.
• Halen, La Ciotat (Harbour Scene) (1929), Ben Uri Gallery, London. A calm, sunlit port in southern France, split into eight balanced sections that mix Impressionist light with his own form of Cubism.
• The Abortion Law (1931), Berlinische Galerie, Berlin. A socially engaged painting from his last years in Berlin, made on burlap.

Decorating with Segal Prints

Segal's still lifes, such as Book Still Life (1930) and Still Life with Bowls and Jug (1930), suit a kitchen, dining room or home office, where their books, jugs and bottles echo everyday objects on the shelf. His winter landscapes, Railway Embankment in Snow and Snow Shovellers, work well in a hallway or bedroom, and Ascona, Village View and Red Roof make easy choices for a living room.

His figure scenes and woodcuts, including The Woodworker from his Work cycle and Cain and Abel (1918) from his Old Testament cycle, have a strong graphic character that holds up in a study or a modern, pared-back interior. A small group of his self-portraits hung together in a hallway or reading corner makes a personal gallery wall.

FAQ

What art movement was Arthur Segal part of?

Segal began in Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, then moved into Expressionism. He co-founded Berlin's Neue Secession in 1910, showed with the Dadaists in Zurich during the First World War, and later served on the board of the Novembergruppe.

What is Arthur Segal's "equivalence" style?

Equivalence, which he developed around 1916, was Segal's idea that every part of a painting should matter equally. He divided his canvases into equal rectangles, avoided a central focus and often painted the frames to continue the picture.

What is Arthur Segal's most famous painting?

There is no single headline work, but his Helgoland paintings of the 1920s, held by the Berlinische Galerie and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, are among his best known.

Where can I see Arthur Segal's original paintings?

His work is held by the Berlinische Galerie and the Jewish Museum Berlin, the Romanian National Art Museum in Bucharest, the Ben Uri Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena.

Why did Arthur Segal leave Germany?

As a Jewish artist he was barred from exhibiting in Germany after 1933. He moved to Mallorca, then to London, where he opened a painting school in 1936 with his daughter Marianne.

Related Artists

• Alexej von Jawlensky — fellow exile in Ascona during the First World War and a visitor to Segal's house
• Marianne von Werefkin — part of the circle of exiled artists who gathered at Segal's home in Ascona
• Robert Delaunay — his prismatic use of color influenced Segal's paintings of the 1920s
• Adolf Hölzel — the color theorist whose ideas shaped Segal's early work