Samples & Related Artists

Jon Serl

Jon Serl (1898 - 1993) was active/lived in California.  Jon Serl is known for Naive genre-figure-animal painting.

Jon Serl was born in Oleans, New York on November 6, 1898.  Jon Serl (né Joseph Searles) was one of three assumed names.  Early in life he was a peripatetic female impersonator and vaudeville performer known as "Slats".  When the silent film era ended in the late 1920s, he was called Jerry Palmer, a voice-over artist for actors whose voices did not fare well in talkies, and during the Depression he was Ned Palmer, a migrant fruit picker.  After WWII he moved to the desert near Palm Springs, took up painting, and remained self taught.  He appeared on the Johnny Carson show twice and was a friend of Clark Gable, Hedda Hopper, and Howard Hughes. A local character and celebrity, he died in Lake Elsinore on June 24, 1993.  Serl's paintings are figurative and narrative, often with mystical elements, and often with elongated people at play. 

His works are held in the American Folk Art Museum, National Museum of American Art, and New Orleans Museum of

Source: Edan Hughes, author of the book "Artists in California, 1786-1940"


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Artist auction records

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Artist artworks for sale and wanted

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Research resources

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Similar artists

.  There are 24 similar (related) artists for Jon Serl available:    Sam Doyle,  Nellie Mae Rowe,  Sybil Deyarmon Gibson,  Leroy Almon,  David Butler,  Eddie Arning,  Raymond Coins,  Mary Tillman Smith,  Charlie Lucas,  Ed Mumma,  Lonnie B Holley,  Harold Theodore (Ted) Gordon,  Shields Landon (S L) Jones,  Herbert "Coon" Singleton,  William Dawson,  Felipe Archuleta,  Lorenzo Scott,  Roy Ferdinand,  Edgar Tolson,  James Castle,  Jessie Aaron,  William Hawkins,  Elijah Pierce,  Willie Massey