Serge Roche and Ismaël Gonzalèz de la Serna

Born in Grenada in 1898, Ismaël Gomez de la Serna was a childhood friend of Federico Garcia Lorca, whose first book he illustrated in 1918. He arrived in Paris in 1921 and was established through an article by Teriade in the Cahiers d'Art in 1927 and an exhibition of fifty or so works with Paul Guillaume. He worked on a very personal form of cubism, and quickly developed a parallel style, the return to the imagery and vocabulary of trompe-l'œil, which he was able to adapt perfectly to the spirit of Serge Roche's creations (doors, table tops, decorative panels). He died in 1968 and his work, with its different modes of expression, was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the City of Paris Museum of Modern Art in Paris.