Josep Maria Sert

Josep Maria Sert i Badia (; Barcelona, 21 December 1874 – 27 November 1945, buried in the Vic Cathedral) was a Spanish muralist, the son of an affluent textile industry family, and friend of Salvador Dalí. He was particularly known for his grisaille style, often in gold and black. Career Sert initially studied art in Rome before moving to Paris in 1899. There, he became involved with a group of decorative artists known as Les Nabis, gravitating around Paul Ranson, who had studied at the private Académie Julian, founded in 1868 by painter Rodolphe Julian. Sert was commissioned in 1900 to paint the interior of the Vic Cathedral in the Province of Barcelona, Catalonia in murals, which took him more than 30 years to complete. By 1910, Sert had begun fully focusing on murals and other large-scale work. He collaborated with Russian Sergei Diaghilev to create sets for his Ballets Russes. In 1929 he was commissioned with the elaboration of a series of large forma canvases painted in his signature grisaille style intending to cover the walls of the reconverted San Telmo church in Donostia-San Sebastián; they portray different historic chapters of the Basques in an epic manner.