
Tree of Paradise
1928 · Oil and enamel on canvas
6' 4 3/4" x 51 3/4" (194.9 x 130.5 cm)
Museum of Modern Art

Séraphine Louis was a French self-taught painter known for densely patterned, visionary compositions featuring flowers, fruits, and botanical forms rendered in jewel-toned oils. Working in isolation in her native Senlis, she developed an intricate decorative language that combined naive figuration with an obsessive, almost transcendent attention to surface and texture. Discovered by critic and collector Wilhelm Uhde in the 1920s, her work defied conventional art-historical categorization and anticipated later movements in outsider and visionary art. She died in Senlis in 1942.
Source: Moma Bulk 2026 05 04 · Trust score: 92% · Updated 25d ago