Georges Lacombe, 1894, Le nabi à la barbe rutilante (Portrait de Paul Sérusier), egg tempra on canvas, 73.5 x 50 cm, Musée Départemental Maurice Denis

Paul Serusier (1864–1927) French Post-Impressionist painter and theorist who was instrumental in the formation of the short-lived, but highly influential, late 19th-century art movement known as the Nabis. The group was noted for its expressive use of colour and pattern in the mode of Paul Gauguin. Sérusier’s early paintings featuring the people and landscapes of Brittany are noteworthy for their muted, contemplative mood, which the artist achieved by using firm contours and blocks of unmodulated colour.