[1] He is best remembered as a naiive painter in the tradition of the American artists Grandma Moses and Edward Hicks.

This contributed to his early artistic talents, including performance, acting, dancing, singing and as a female impersonator.

Serl traded his paintings for rent, with Florence Kochevar, the owner of the San Gabriel property.

The Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery managed the exhibition entitled, "California primitives, authentic and of great importance".

In 1981, the Newport Harbor Art Museum organized a show named "Psychological Paintings: The Personal Vision of Jon Serl".

His works explored the inner and the outer worlds with a narrative that often expressed dualities such as female and male, good and evil, or nature and technology.

Jon Serl was also a voiceover artist for silent film actors who could not make the transition to the talkies.

When he went back to Laguna Beach after the war, he worked odd jobs and spent all his spare time painting.

It includes an introduction by Jo Farb Hernandez, Gallery Director and Exhibition Curator, as well as essays by Cara Zimmerman, co-editor of the 2013 book "Great and Mighty Things:" Outsider Art from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection, and Randall Morris of the Cavin-Morris Gallery in New York, and Serl's longtime gallerist and friend.

On January 1, 1995, West Stockbridge, MA: Hard Press, Inc., 1995 published "One Man by Himself: Portraits of Jon Serl by Sam Messer.

Essays by Denis Johnson and Red Lips, All Handwritten Quotes from the Mouth of Jon Serl".

This book includes a narrative by Denis Johnson describing the painting encounters between both artists, as well as Jon Serl's quotes.