Serge Birault
The renowned pin-up artist talks about his legal background, his favourite models and his greatest creation to date
erge Birault is a great pin-up artist. From his first postings online in the early 2000s, his style of detailed, technical, painstaking art has won him fans on all continents – friends, too. Yet, for a long time the French artist was destined to inhabit quite another world, far removed from the latex-covered, octopus-fighting women he’s synonymous with. Serge was going to be a judge.
He studied law for eight years specialising in work law, specifically working with disabled applicants. In his first role he was hired to fire a group of other employees. “In my first meeting they said that they wanted me to work out how to sack them.” Instead, Serge sought to help them out. “Two days later they fired me… Arseholes.”
This was in the early 2000s. Serge had financed his law studies by selling paintings. All along he had built up his skills as a self-taught airbrush and acrylic painter. But he didn’t enjoy selling his work. “I did big paintings for restaurants, that kind of stuff. I did some book covers. But I really didn’t want to earn my way with my paintings and give them up. They were like my babies. But my mother told me to.”
Women rule, okay?
Born in Strasbourg, near the French-German border, Serge says that he enjoyed a good German education: “I’m polite. Well, I used to be.” He’s also quick to add that his mum was the key force in his early years. “My mother was a house cleaner, my father a sports teacher. It was very hard for my mother, she had several crappy jobs. My father was like the typical man: liked sports, liked beer… all that I didn’t want to be. So my only role model was my mother and my sisters. I never
I didn’t want to give up my paintings – my babies. But my mother told me to
July 2015