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Born in Russia, painter Serge Poliakoff was one of the major figures of the School of Paris, to whom we owe a renewal of abstraction in the post-war period. His compositions, composed of interlocking free shapes and superimposed large coloured areas, reflect his research on the intensity of colour, the balance of construction, and the effects of the vibration and transparency of matter; “Transparency gives life,” the artist said. Over the course of more than three decades of work dedicated to pure abstraction, Poliakoff explored on numerous mediums: canvases, papers, lithographs, or even theater sets.

The artist’s biographers like to recount the romantic life of the man, born in Moscow in 1900, who, after he fled the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, wandered from Constantinople to London before settling in Paris. For a long time, he there lived a bohemian life, playing the guitar in Russian cabarets; it is not insignificant to recall this long journey, to emphasise that Poliakoff’s success came late and that it took him a good twenty years to gain recognition as a painter, after many years of training in various art academies, including that of the Grande Chaumière.

Some encounters were decisive in leading Poliakoff to abstraction. In 1937, the year the Bauhaus closed, he discovered Vassily Kandinsky, who had settled in Paris four years earlier. Although he did not retain everything of his pictorial approach, his meeting with the great Master of Abstraction marked a turning point in his life and encouraged him to pursue his own path. Through the Delaunay couple, whom he frequented regularly from 1938, Poliakoff was then introduced to the theory of simultaneous contrasts. But it was probably with Otto Freundlich, whom he met the same year, that he felt the closest. This great humanist’s compositions in fragmented chromatic planes, his sensitivity, and his search for balance between form and colour made a great impression on him.

These encounters and the progressive evolution of Poliakoff’s painting towards pure abstraction echoed the visual shocks that gave his pictorial approach an almost mystical dimension. In the lingering memory of the Russian churches that his mother showed him as a child, there remained a fascination for the mysterious, severe beauty of religious icons, the partitioning of their colours and the juxtaposition of spaces. Later, during a visit of the British Museum, he discovered the Egyptian sarcophagi. Scraping the surface of one of them, he uncovered the layering of matter, revealing the effects of transparency and vibration produced by this process. Decisive impressions and fundamental lessons succeeded each other, from which Poliakoff drew an eternal body of work.

This work, identifiable at a glance, is anchored in a continuous dialogue between pure form and colour. This formal language, taken for itself, stands as the living, vibrant matter that Poliakoff, as the great architect that he is, used to construct unique compositions, guided by a constant search for the interconnected balance of forms. Beyond this technique, the originality of Poliakoff’s work lies in its sensual and meditative dimension. It invites calmness, silence, and contemplation, and often, eludes analysis.

In 1945, his first solo exhibition at the Galerie l’Esquisse paved the way for international recognition. Eight years later, in 1953, his solo show at the Circle & Square Gallery in New York allowed him to win over the American public. In 1962, as he was granted French nationality, a whole room was dedicated to his work at the Venice Biennale. He was awarded the Kandinsky Prize in 1947, then the Tokyo Biennale prize in 1965. His first major retrospective took place shortly after his death, in 1970, at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. Today, Poliakoff’s works are preserved in the collections of numerous prestigious museums, including the Tate Gallery, the Centre Pompidou, the MoMA, and the Kunstmuseum Bern.


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“In one form there must be several forms and in several forms there must be only one form.”

Serge Poliakoff, 1965, Cahier I

Artworks

Serge Poliakoff

Composition abstraite, 1967
Oil on canvas
162,5 x 131 cm | 64 x 51 5/8 in.

Serge Poliakoff, Composition abstraite

1956

Serge Poliakoff, Composition abstraite

1963

Serge Poliakoff, Composition

1962

Serge Poliakoff, Composition abstraite

1967

Exhibitions

Art Fairs

News

The Choice of Painting

February 10th - June 9th, 2024

Tessé Museum, Le Mans

The Tessé Museum is presenting the exhibition “The Choice of Painting, Another History of Abstraction, 1962-1989” from February 10th to June 9th, 2024. It offers a panorama of three decades of abstract painting in France, from the 1960s to the 1980s. How did artists kept on painting when the trend, starting from the 1960s, gazed […]

The Choice of Painting

VASARELY BEFORE THE OP: European abstraction, 1945-1955

17 June to 15 October 2023

Fondation Vasarely, Aix-En-Provence

The Vasarely Foundation continues its partnership with the Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne-Centre de création industrielle for the 4th consecutive year, with the summer exhibition “Vasarely avant l’Op, une abstraction européenne, 1945-1955”. From June 17 to October 15, 2023, a selection of 35 major works on loan from the Paris museum, the Musée départemental […]

VASARELY BEFORE THE OP: European abstraction, 1945-1955

At the heart of Abstraction Works from the collection of the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art

July 2 - November 22, 2022

Fondation Maeght

The exhibition at the Fondation Maeght will show works from the collection of the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art from the 2nd of July until the 20th of November 2022 and offers an immersion in the vibrant creation of the years 1945 to 1980. Home to a collection of more than 13,000 works, Fondation Maeght is […]

At the heart of Abstraction Works from the collection of the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art

Serge Poliakoff in Germany

March 21, 2021 – July 21, 2021

Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Museum Gunzenhauser

Serge Poliakoff Accomplished peinture This exhibition selects an important artist from the Dr. Alfred Gunzenhauser Collection: Serge Poliakoff. The artist originally came from Moscow. In Paris around 1950 he developed his own very distinctive formal idiom. Drawing on Cubism and the colour theories of Robert and Sonja Delaunay, he produced works that linger neither in […]

Serge Poliakoff in Germany

Calder, Soulages, Vasarely,… Abstractions plurielles (1950-1980)

March 2 - November 21, 2021

Musée d'art de Pully

Le Musée d’art de Pully collabore avec la Fondation Gandur pour l’Art autour d’une exposition consacrée à la peinture informelle des années 1950 à 1980. Les années qui suivent la Seconde Guerre mondiale connaissent une grande effervescence artistique. Paris reprend rapidement sa place de capitale culturelle et attire des peintres du monde entier. La tendance […]

Calder, Soulages, Vasarely,… Abstractions plurielles (1950-1980)

Serge Poliakoff | The dream of forms

October 18, 2013 - February 23, 2014

Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris

The Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris is devoting a large-scale retrospective to the abstract painter Serge Poliakoff (1900-1969): in all, some 70 paintings and many works on paper from the period 1936-1969. Since 1970 there has been no significant exhibition of the work of this major representative of the School of Paris […]

Serge Poliakoff | The dream of forms

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