Ismaël de La Serna

Ishmael de La Serna

Born in 1898 in Granada (Spain)

Died November 30, 1968 in Paris (France)

Expressionism was central to the artistic career of Ismaël de la Serna. Although he never found himself trapped in figuration, he demonstrated the influence of formal impressionism and early naturalism. As an artist, he loved beauty but was wary of ugliness and trained at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios in Granada and the Escuela de San Fernando in Madrid. After a trip to Paris in 1921, where he met artists such as Braque, Juan Gris, Gargallo and Juli González, De la Serna recognized the preeminence of avant-garde post-cubist techniques in which he drew the different currents of cubism. . together Fauvist techniques and, from 1929, abstract techniques, first as a backdrop and later as a material expression of his art. His time in France was so influential that he became a representative of the Paris school. After his acquaintance with the work of André Breton, he was encouraged to adopt an approach in which, like Dalí, he populated his paintings with strange and grotesque beings. His inquisitive mind led him to create using an international trans-avant-garde approach, in a kind of permanent collage of procedures and isms that he combined.