Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 14

Jean Pierre Serrier
French Mod Surrealist Commedia dell'arte Circus Scene Oil Painting J.P. Serrier

c.1950's-1960's

About the Item

Jean Pierre Serrier (French, 1934-1989) Oil on canvas painting depicting four figures Hand signed lower right. Measures (frame) 26.5" x 30" wide, and (sight) 18.25." x 22.25" wide. Jean Pierre Serrier (1934 – 1989) was a French painter known for surrealism and absurdist art. Jean-Pierre Serrier was born in Montparnasse, Paris and attended the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. the son of Louis and Solange Serrier. His father fought in World War II and became a prisoner of war. In 1940, as a six-year-old, he and his mother fled Paris for Corrèze in southwest France. Childhood memories of close escapes from German bombardments would later influence his absurdist philosophy of life. Passionate about drawing, in 1951 he applied and was admitted to the École nationale supérieure des arts appliqués et des métiers d'art in Paris. He shared an attic apartment in the 16th arrondissement with fellow student Jean-Baptiste Valadié. For income, he decorated shop windows. A trip to Spain provided motifs for early works. His student work might be characterized as art naïf (Naive art). While still a student, he sold a ceramic artwork to the poet and publisher Pierre Seghers, who would later commission drawings from him. He frequented jazz clubs in Saint-Germain des Près, and while listening to Sidney Bechet at the Vieux Colombier, he met his wife, Yvette.One of the last French Surrealist and follower of Nietzsche. His art conveyed the message to all of mankind that we are only human. The other Surrealist to center his art in philosophy was Rene Magritte whose paintings reflect his understanding of Sigmund Freud. He had his first exhibition in 1955, before being sent to Algeria to complete his military service. After graduating in 1955, he was drafted for military service, spent time in Germany and Morocco, and was sent to the front lines of the Algerian War. In 1959 he exhibited works at two Parisian galleries and at Juan-les-Pins on the Côte d'Azur. From 1961, he exhibited annually at the Salon des Artistes Français. In 1962, the City of Paris purchased his painting Un dimanche In 1961, Serrier made his first visit to the United States to exhibit at a New York gallery. In 1975 and 1979, he had successful exhibitions in New Orleans, and his work was included in art and news magazines, including Time and Newsweek. Beginning in the 1950s, his works included stylized portraits similar in some ways to the "big eyes" art of Margaret Keane, though it is uncertain that either artist influenced the other. Keane painted children, and so did Serrier, sometimes from life, but Serrier’s models are usually somewhat older, though uniformly slender and with androgynous features. A gallery owner introduced Serrier to American collectors Edgar Garbisch and his wife, Bernice Chrysler (daughter of Chrysler founder Walter P. Chrysler), who had a particular interest in naïve art; they commissioned a series of portraits from Serrier. At the same time, he met Reine Ausset in Paris, who in 1961 invited him to New York to take part in an exhibition at Galerie Norval on 57th Street. The show also included work by Moïse Kisling, and the exhibition program explicitly linked the two artists, saying that Serrier, who considered Moise Kisling "the Master," had found his own technique, but "the same vision joins the grand Kisling to the young Serrier: plenitude of shapes, sureness of palette, precision in outlines." In the 1960s he began painting slender, young, androgynous figures in groups, set in sparse landscapes with suggestions of the surreal and sometimes wearing costumes of the Commedia dell'arte. In some of these paintings the eyes of the figures are completely black, a motif that would continue in his later work. In 1965, he exhibited at Forest and Reed Gallery in London. Also in 1965, he discovered the small town of Martel, and with his old roommate Jean-Baptiste Valadié purchased a house that they opened as the gallery La Licorne (The Unicorn) in 1967. Responding to the political upheavals of May 1968 in France, and following the advice of Geneva gallery owner Roger Ferrero, Serrier's work became increasingly complex, idiosyncratic, and surreal. Imagery included the Tower of Babel, bodies suspended in space, and crowds of people all dressed alike, with identical features and entirely black eyes. Mannequins, playing cards, nudes, and levitating orbs also figured in the work. In a nod to Magritte, his men sometimes wear bowler hats. Another influence may have been the works of the Franco-Belgian surrealist Gaston Bogaert (1918-2008). Serrier's first major exhibit of these works, in Geneva in 1971, was titled Le Réalisme Fantastique. (Magic Realism) In 1972, he was made a member of the Société du Salon d'Automne, under whose auspices he was invited by the Polish government to exhibit in Warsaw in 1973, as part of a cultural exchange across the Iron Curtain. In 1976, he served on the jury of the Salon d'Automne. In 1975, New Orleans gallery owner Kurt E. Schon brought his work to several cities in the United States. A copiously illustrated monograph in English, Surrealism and the Absurd: Jean Pierre Serrier, was published in 1977. Author Thomas M. Bayer wrote: Serrier's world is one where—to use Friedrich Nietzche's term—the "human herd animal" is being confronted with the overwhelming task of coping with the world, his solitude, and at times, his resignation in the face of its monstrous size and duration. It is a world where the characterless, "blind" man faces the institutions, rules and symbols that made him into the being he now is…But Serrier does not lose himself in this world he portrays. He never forgets the old French tradition, the "black" humor, à la Molière. This classical humor at times is more felt than seen, in a manner that can be terribly funny, because it is horrifying, laughable, poignant and always true. Serrier told a friend, "In each of my paintings there's a message of hope amid the crowd of stereotypical figures. It could be an escaping dirigible, or a nymphet who flees like a deer under the red and blue trees of paradise." In 1986, Schon mounted The First Major Retrospective Exhibition of Works by French Surrealist Jean Pierre Serrier in New York. The venue was Automation House, a "center for working out problems caused by automation, and for developing and displaying technological art." In 1989, at the age of 54, Serrier died. His last works were exhibited that year at the Salon d'Angers and at Galerie Ferrero in Geneva. The journalist Marie-France Coquard remembered him as "the most generous and faithful friend one could imagine. He forgave everything without passing judgment, often giving more than he received…Jean Pierre gave away, beyond counting, lithographs, artist's proofs…drawings, paintings, his own as well as those of his colleagues. And he did so just as you might give a flower from your garden to a friend who has come to visit." In 2017, the Musée de Montmartre hosted the program Jean Pierre Serrier, Peintre surréaliste montmartrois. His works in museums include: The Shoot Gallery (1968) at the Canton Museum of Art in Ohio. L'Autre Côté du Mur (The Other Side of the Wall) at the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, New York; exhibited in the show The Surreal in 2021. A 21st-century auction record for a work by Serrier was set by Course de Vélo (1973), sold for $8125 (including premium) at Neal in New Orleans in 2022. He was a member of the Autumn Salon and in 1976 was elected a jury member. He exhibited widely during his lifetime, including in London, Paris, Geneva, and Brussels, and posthumous retrospectives of his work took place in New York and New Orleans.
More From This SellerView All
  • Venezuelan Surrealism Architectural Oil Painting Emerio Lunar Latin American Art
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Provenance: Galeria Durban Cesar Segnini, Caracas Venezuela. Emerio Dario Lunar was born on January 27, 1940 in Cabimas, Zulia state. Self-taught ...
    Category

    1980s Surrealist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • Italian Modernist Surrealist Architecture Landscape Oil Painting Lazzaro Donati
    By Lazzaro Donati
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Lazzaro Donati (Italian, 1926-1977) Oil on board. Colorful Architectural Italian Landscape. Porto Azzurro, 1964 Hand signed upper right. signed, titled on back of panel. Dimensions: (Frame) H 37" x W 29", (Panel) H 27" x W 19" Lazzaro Donati was born in Florence and attended the Academy of Fine Arts. He began to paint in 1953, and in 1955 held his first exhibition at the Indiano Gallery in Florence. Within three years eleven exhibitions followed in Italy, and as his reputation grew he was invited to give major exhibitions in London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo. He is considered one of the foremost contemporary Italian painters and his paintings hang in museums and private collections throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. His work is recalling the works of the french Raoul Dufy, Dunoyer de Segonzac, Francois Gall and Jean Jansem. This particular work is reminiscent of the work of Manolo Valdes. Donati lived and worked at 24 Piazza Donatello in Florence, the square where generations of artists have created works worthy of the great Florentine tradition. As you entered the narrow hallway to his studio, a gilded life-size Venetian angel beckoned you to his door. Once inside, the present faded away and you found yourself in an atelier where early masters might have worked during the Renaissance. Within, luxurious Persian rugs set off the innumerable objects d’art and antique furnishings...
    Category

    1960s Surrealist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Panel

  • Latvian Israeli Surreal Gouache Illustration Art Painting Tel Aviv
    By Maris Bishofs
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Maris Bishofs was born in 1939 in Rujiena, Latvia. In 1965 he became the first artist to graduate from the Latvian Art Academy with an interior design diploma. In 1972 he emigrated t...
    Category

    1970s Surrealist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Gouache

  • Latvian Israeli Surrealism Illustration Art Lithograph Screenprint Flying Baruch
    By Maris Bishofs
    Located in Surfside, FL
    BARUCH, color screenprint, signed in pencil, numbered 5/175, sheet 25 ¾ x 21 ½”. Maris Bishofs was born in 1939 in Rujiena, Latvia. In 1965 he became the first artist to graduate fr...
    Category

    20th Century Surrealist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Screen

  • Modernist Family Outing with Dog (Picnic in the Park) Ben Benn Oil Painting WPA
    By Ben Benn
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Genre: Modern Subject: People Medium: Acrylic Surface: Canvas Country: United States Dimensions: 20" x 24" Scene of a family leisurely gathering together in a park to picnic and enjoying their day by the artist Ben Benn. Ben Benn, Russian/American (1884-1983) Ben Benn, a Russian-born American still-life and Post Impressionist landscape painter who was part of the first generation of artists in America to try to digest the lessons of Cubism Benn Benn was a pioneer American modernist whose independent style defied stylistic classification. Despite excursions into Cubism and Abstract Expressionist style, Benn “seems always to have been a ‘subject’ painter. Considering this, it is remarkable that he remained visible at all during the 50’s and early 60’s, when prejudice against the representational amounted nearly to a proscription of it.” Benn’s prominence in the art world over 6 decades was reaffirmed at a 90th birthday show at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington , D.C. in 1974. Benn was born Benjamin Rosenberg in the town of Kamenets Podolsk in the Russian empire in 1884. This town was the regional capital of an area in what is today, SW Ukraine, and was historically known as Podolia. the Rosenberg family chose, along with thousands of others, to immigrate from Podolia to the United States in 1894 or 1899. “Between 1904 and 1908 Benn attended the National Academy of Design and he studied at the Arts Students League In New York City. He spent most of his career in New York City including memberships with the American Society of Painters and Sculptors, American Artists Congress and the Woodstock Artist Association. Academy curriculum stressed portraiture built up with broad, painterly brushstrokes, a technique that remained the foundation of Benn’s style. In his first group show, in 1913, he exhibited with Max Weber and Man Ray. By the mid teens his canvases were bolder in color and more decorative in style. In 1916, Benn participated in the important "Forum Exhibition of Modern American Painters...
    Category

    Mid-20th Century Expressionist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • October, Night Scene with Castle and Soldiers Oil Painting
    By John Bowman
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Interesting Night Scene, signed and dated verso with various gallery exhibition labels. I have seen other of his works variously titled Gulag and Bastille not sure what the series refers to. John Bowman works in a variety of media including painting, drawing, and sculpture. The Winston Wachter Gallery, in New York City, represents him. Beginning in the 1980’s, he exhibited at various venues in New York City, including the Holly Solomon Gallery, the Lang...
    Category

    1980s Contemporary Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

You May Also Like
  • SPRING UP, Oil on Canvas
    Located in Montreux, CH
    Karen Shahverdyan „Eleven“ 129 X 147cm, oil on canvas
    Category

    Early 2000s Surrealist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • MOUNTAINS, Oil on Canvas
    Located in Montreux, CH
    Karen Shahverdyan „Mountains“ 80 X 100cm, oil on canvas
    Category

    Early 2000s Surrealist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • WINTER BALANCE, Oil on Canvas
    Located in Montreux, CH
    Karen Shahverdyan „Winter balance“ 90 X 110cm, oil on canvas
    Category

    Early 2000s Surrealist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • Thoughtful - XXI Century, Contemporary Figurative Painting, Surrealism, Nocturn
    By Mariusz Zdybal
    Located in Warsaw, PL
    Mariusz Zdybal (born in 1955) He was awarded with "Golden Palm" at the international painting competition in Cannes and his works has been shown in Cannes, Warsaw, Gdansk and Berli...
    Category

    Early 2000s Surrealist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

  • Yemaya Desembarcar, colorful mythic woman in ocean seascape at beach
    By Stephen Basso
    Located in Brooklyn, NY
    Large mythic seascape painting of woman in blue evening gown at the beach Mr. Basso's work is known for ironic, fantastic, and clever narrative elem...
    Category

    2010s Surrealist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • Large Surrealist Oil on Canvas. 'She brought Colour into his Life'.
    By Frank Docherty
    Located in Cotignac, FR
    Large surrealist contemporary oil on canvas by Scottish artist Frank McLean Docherty R.S.W, signed and dated bottom left and signed and titled 'She brought Colour into his Life' to the reverse. This piece whilst wonderfully colourful, playful and erotic is typical of the witty sense of humour this artist displays in all his work. Docherty likes to tease us visually and asks questions and presents conundrums to the viewer. Frank McLean Docherty was born in Glasgow , Scotland in 1942. He became a student at Glasgow School of Art in 1960 and graduated from the Department of Printed Textiles in 1964. He taught in a secondary school in the East End of Glasgow for two years, thereafter departing to work in Dublin in the Republic of Ireland as a textile designer (Marks & Spencer, Heals and Liberty of London). He was also an illustrator for a range of newspapers and an Art Director of magazines. In 1973, he was appointed Principal Teacher of Art in a Scottish High School and in 1978 was honoured by the Queen when he was appointed Member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours (R.S.W.) He left education in 1994. Since that time he has developed a vision which is quite unique in Scottish Art. Bank Managers, toucans, lighthouses, penguins, bowler hats, Frank Docherty...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary Surrealist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

Recently Viewed

View All