Ismael Gonzålez de la Serna was born in 1898 in Granada, Spain. He began painting and drawing when he was nine years old. While in school, he became friends with Federico Garcia Lorca, later to become a famous poet. Indeed, it was de la serna who in 1918 illustrated Garcia Lorca's first book, Impresiones y Paisajes.
The year 1927 was one of remarkable success for de la Serna. Tériade devoted an article on him in issues of the art review, Cahiers d'Art, which simultaneously covered the works of luminaries such as Renoir and Picasso. Tériade wrote that de la Serna was the painter “we had all been waiting for.” That is, his poetic sensibility lent in certain unity to his work and deftly combined a vigor of expression with a delicacy of form.
Paul Guillaume then organized an exhibition of fifty of de la Serna's works to wide acclaim. An individual exhibition at the Gallery Flechtheim in Berlin was equally successful, all of the works found buyers. The gallery even signed de la Serna to a contract, which remained in effect until 1933, when Hitler's rise to power forced its revocation.
De la Serna continued to work throughout the 1940's and 1950's. His style evolved into pure combinations of color and form. His paintings continued to be shown in France, Germany, Spain, and Mexico. In 1963, he was invited to participate in an exhibition of French paintings at the Tate Gallery in London and in an exhibition at the Hammer Gallery in New York.
In 1974, the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris organized a retrospective of nearly one hundred of de la Serna's paintings from throughout his career. The retrospective tracked the artist's diversity of subjects and the technical scope of his talent. De la Serna died in Paris in 1968. His personal contributions to the language of art endure.
