Raoul Serres (1881-1971) Portrait Of A Basque

Raoul SERRES
(Cazères sur Garonne 1881 – Nogent sur Marne 1971)
Portrait of a Basque
Oil on cardboard
H. 41 cm; W. 33 cm
Signed lower right

Provenance: Private collection, French Catalonia

Originally known mainly for his work as an engraver and illustrator under the name of Schem, Raoul Serres is today well known in the Basque Country for his regional representations. After rapid studies in the southwest, he went to Paris to enter the workshops of Léon Bonnat, Dubouchet and Jacquet. He exhibited engravings at the Salon from 1898, and would only rarely show his work in oils. In 1906 he won the Grand Prix de Rome for engraving, which opened up a vast order book for him from publishers, who wanted to see the texts of fashionable authors illustrated by a young talent. Serres' Basque work seems to have taken place after the Great War. He mainly produces landscapes and scenes of life typical of the region. The portraits, much rarer, reinforce the interest of ours in the artistic corpus of the artist. It is possible that it is originally a pair with the portrait of a woman whose visual accompanies this notice. Opposite direction of figure, so as to face each other, placed in a frame, one in an arc of a circle, the other square, like a confrontation of the sexes.