Boats in the Bay: Haunting Mid Century Modernist Painting by Accursed Prodigy Artist Sert: A Swedish Story Mixed Media on Paper

A deeply poignant work and haunting by an artist considered a genius by many critics.

If you have never heard of Henri Paul Sert (1938-1964) it is because he was the proverbial "artiste maudit", an accursed artist. if you look at the dates above, you will also notice that he lived to the age of ....25. Here is his story. Much of it is directly translated from Hugo Lindkvist's 2015 article on the artist.

Henri Paul Sert was born on Reunion Island, a French colony in the Indian Ocean. When he was 10 years old, Henri Paul Sert's mother brought him to Paris, dropped him off at a Jesuit monastery and disappeared, never to be seen again. Upon leaving the monastery,

Henri Paul became an apprentice to a French painter called René. As soon as he could, Sert parted with his master and tried to earn a living as a professional artist on his own. He was soon considered a prodigy in Montparnasse.

It was a Swedish journalist called Svante Löfgren who discovered the then 20-year-old painter in Paris for his own countrdigyy .

Writing for the "Expressen" newspaper, Löfgren wrote in his 1958 article on Sert "He can become one of the greats of his generation, if he does not starve to death." In fact, Sert had become close to starvation. He collapsed but was rescued in hospital.

Sert got help to travel to Scandinavia from Swedish patrons, and was able show his art at exhibitions in Copenhagen and Oslo. Notable exhibitions included Galleri Danielsson in Borgholm, Galerie Marya in Copenhagen, the Art Association in Oslo and Gallery Danielsson in Borgholm. Reviews were rave. "His oils shimmer like mother-of-pearl with myriads of splashes of paint and glazed brushstrokes, sometimes fine-tuned to the smallest detail with plump dot patterns," wrote Alvar Jonsson. "French sensation in the Art Association" wrote a Danish newspaper after the 1959 show in Copenhagen.

However, soon problems developed. With little money, Sert began to exchange his paintings for necessities and did not have enough paintings for his exhibition, having exchanged them for clothes, food and new paints. Sert was beginning to develop a reputation for being difficult. He was described by contemporaries as a "genius, problem child and as unreliable as the wind. Despite the difficulties, his dedication to art remained constant. He painted exclusively at night, he lay on the floor and painted on five or six canvases and listened to music. The painting just flowed out of him. It was a constant flow - but still creative. He was not a pondering artist; he was a gift of nature with a creative power. Author Ivar Ahlstedt wrote that to Sert, "painting was necessary, living was not very necessary".

Sert's personal issues began to have an effect on his patrons and gallery owners. According to author Lars Widding, the patrons simply dropped the young painter who had such a hard time adapting. In his final years he just painted and starved.

On 22 March 1964, Sert was found dead, probably due to an overdose of sleeping pills.

Our mixed media painting in watercolours and charcoal on paper measures 62 x 48 cm and dates Sert's Parisian period prior to his departure to Sweden. It is signed and dated 1955 at the lower right - the artist was just seventeen years old.

Nous parlons français, und wir sprechen auch Deutsch! Paintings may be viewed in Norwich and in Paris, as well as in London and Cambridge by appointment. Please contact us if you would like further details and images of an artwork.