Oil on panel, silver-painted wooden frame.

Henri Paul Sert (1938–1964) was a singular, self-taught talent whose short life produced an intense and highly personal body of work. Born on La Réunion and raised in Paris, he was educated in a Jesuit monastery before leaving to apprentice with a painter in Montparnasse. By his late teens he was regarded as a prodigy in the Paris art scene, working with extraordinary speed and instinct, often painting on canvases laid directly on the floor.

Discovered for the Scandinavian audience in 1958, Sert was brought to Sweden, where he exhibited in Copenhagen, Oslo, Borgholm and Stockholm. Critics praised the shimmering, almost iridescent quality of his oils and the emotional immediacy of his imagery. Yet his life remained turbulent, marked by poverty, uncompromising dedication to painting and difficulties with the patrons who surrounded him.

Sert died in Stockholm in 1964 at the age of 25, leaving behind a small but powerful oeuvre. His posthumous exhibitions in Sweden and Denmark, and later at Åmells in 2015, affirmed his status as a remarkable, if tragically brief, force in postwar art.

Dimensions: Height: 15.75 in (40 cm)Width: 11.23 in (28.5 cm)Depth: 0.4 in (1 cm)

Price: On request