When the Second World War broke out, Serge Mendjisky was only ten years old. At twelve, he finds himself on his own in occupied Paris, where many children are used by the Resistance to transport weapons and false papers. This will be the case of Serge who, arrested by the Nazis, will narrowly escape deportation, thanks to the complicity of two "malgré nous" (against our will), these Alsatian soldiers enlisted by force by the German army.
After the war, Serge continued the Resistance. While the artistic period is about expressionism and abstraction, Serge celebrates life ; its beauty, its strength, its fragility. His palette is filled only with pure tones, bright colors, in the manner of the Impressionists and the Fauves. In the lines, his touch is inspired by Van Gogh, then by Cézanne whose perfection of composition, balance between color and drawing, allow him to take a step towards his pictorial objective : to paint the color of the air ; objective his father, the painter Maurice Mendjizky (1890-1951), had instilled in him.
Serge's earliest works date from 1958-1959 and receive critical acclaim. They are exhibited in Paris at the Galerie Saint-Placide, in New York, Los Angeles and Miami.