Modern Art + Design presents: Serge Poliakoff
Serge Poliakoff
"Composition abstraite"
Bukowskis presents Serge Poliakoff at Modern Art + Design. Viewing 12th to 16th of May, Auction the 17th and 18th of May.
Serge Poliakoff is one of the most prominent representatives of abstract painting and its development during the postwar period. Born in Moscow in 1900, Poliakoff fled Russia during the 1917 revolution before finally ending up in Paris in 1923. Studies at Académie Frochot as well as Académie de la Grande Chaumière in 1929 were followed by further studies at the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 1935.
The pioneers in abstract art
After returning to Paris he made the acquaintance of Vasily Kandinsky and husband and wife Robert and Sonia Delaunay.
Poliakoff’s position as a leading name in avant-garde abstract painting was further reinforced during the postwar period. He left his previous approaches behind for the benefit of a unique approach that explored the origin of colour through compositions distinguished by painterly, overlapping sections of colour.
In the years right after the war Poliakoff’s palette grew significantly darker as he painted in muted, blurred ochre and earthy tones. This was a deliberate attempt to counteract the overly decorative or varied impact of his abstract structures.
These paintings, occasionally interspersed with isolated, more brightly coloured elements, characterised his work up until the mid-1960s.
”Poliakoff’s position as a leading name in avant-garde abstract painting was further reinforced during the postwar period.”
In the years right after the war Poliakoff’s palette grew significantly darker as he painted in muted, blurred ochre and earthy tones. This was a deliberate attempt to counteract the overly decorative or varied impact of his abstract structures.
These paintings, occasionally interspersed with isolated, more brightly coloured elements, characterised his work up until the mid-1960s.
The lot in the auction, Composition abstraite, was executed in 1967 and is an excellent example of Poliakoff’s painting in this pivotal period of the artist’s life.
During the 1960s a large retrospective of Poliakoff’s work was shown at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London in 1963 and his work was also exhibited in Venice, Tokyo and St. Gallen in the years that followed.
