Watercolor of mother & child by Eudald Serra Guell, d1939
Signed by artist and marked Kobe 1939 in lower right

Frame: 16 3/4" x 18 3/8"
Watercolor: 9 3/4" x 11"

According to an article by Ricard Bru written about Serras time in Japan, Serra had a house 20 minutes outside the city of Kobe, where he lived and set up his workshop. The artist devoted himself to drawing the poorer neighborhoods of Kobe. Bru writes: portraying either with the pencil, with the hands or with the chisel, people of the immediate environment, Japanese and Koreans of Kobe.

Eudald Serra Guell
(Source: barcelona.cat) Sculptor and ethnologist. A renowned surrealist sculptor, he was part of the pre-war Catalan artistic avant-garde, with the ADLAN group (Friends of Art Nouveau). He studied at the Escola dArts i Oficis Llotja, where he was a student of Angel Ferrant. In 1935, he went to Japan, where he became involved in ceramics, through Hamada Shoji, and he staged a number of exhibitions which won various awards. He lived there until 1948. His interest in other cultures began during his trip to the island of Hokkaido in 1947, in the service of the United States army, during which he modelled busts of the original inhabitants of the land, an activity which he defined as plastic anthropology and which was a constant in all of his journeys. In 1949, back in Barcelona, he came into contact with August Panyella and began his collaboration with the museum. He later met Albert Folch. They formed a close friendship.

Provenance
(From nytimes obituary) Laura Odell (b1922), a retired interior and kitchen designer, died on August 25, 2021 at her home of 56 years in Manhattan.

From her interest in preparing fine cuisine, she founded Laura Odell Kitchen Designs and became successful in the design and installation of residential kitchens. Her talents extended into interior design, a lifelong passion. Her clients included notable figures in fashion, corporate leadership and politics. In her early 90s, she consulted on the design of the current Gracie Mansion kitchen.

Over several years, she contributed to numerous articles in the New York Times Home section. She was an enthusiastic patron of the arts, including theater, ballet and musical performance. For over 20 years, she was a dedicated student of the Iyengar school of yoga.

Mrs. Odell was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and emigrated to the US in 1941, living in Chicago, IL. She moved to New York City in 1948 and with her husband Herman, an attorney, (d.1993), devoted her time to raising two sons, James (d. 2020) and Robert of Seattle, WA. She is survived by three grandchildren, Jasper, Miles and Hannah, and beloved nieces and nephews Chuck, Roger & Myla Green.

Good condition overall