Paul SERUSIER - Bretagne, la fileuse de Pont Aven - Original signed drawing

Paul Sérusier : (1864-1927) was a french postimpressionnist painter, member of the Nabis movement. Sérusier graduated in Philosophy and Science in 1883, before joining the Julian Academy in 1885. He met at that time the painter Maurice Denis. Sérusier spent the summer 1888 in Pont-Aven (Brittany), a city which was attracting a lot of French and foreigner artists. There, he acquainted a a group of artists, gathered around Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin. The latter encouraged him to get rid of all imitative constraints, to use pure and vivid colours, and to give his paintings their own decorative and symbolic logic. Sérusier followed these pieces of advice with enthusiasm, and settled in the region the following year. With his friends Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Henri-Gabriel Ibels and Paul-Elie Ranson, Sérusier founded the group of the Nabis (« prophet » in Hebrew). They were meeting regularly to talk about art theories, symbolism, occultism and esoterism. After Gauguin's departure to Tahiti in 1891, the group ties got loose, and the artists took their own path. Sérusier remained in Brittany, and his style evolved: the colours of his palette changed as he stopped using pure colours, mixing them with grey. He was spending winters in Paris, working on symbolist decors and costumes for theatre, as many Nabis artists. Sérusier was regularly teaching at the Ranson Academy, starting from 1908. In 1921 he published "ABC de la peinture", a painting tract which corresponds to the synthesis of his aesthetical research. He died in 1927 in Morlaix.