Poliakoff, Serge.
Works of the artist.
Renowned for his pioneering role in the abstract movement, Serge Poliakoff challenged the established norms of European art and redefined the conventional meaning of representation. [+]
Poliakoff, Serge
Renowned for his pioneering role in the abstract movement, Serge Poliakoff challenged the established norms of European art and redefined the conventional meaning of representation. He was born in Moscow in 1900 and was raised by an aristocrat family, which gave him the opportunity to live a privileged childhood with access to education in music, literature and singing. Due to the Russian revolution, he was required to abandon his country in 1917. In that moment, he decided to accompany his aunt, a renowned international singer, on her European tour.
With an understanding of Europe’s artistic world, he moved to Paris in 1923, where he took painting classes in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Unfortunately, all the paintings he created during his first years in the French capital were lost, yet he was interested in the human body. In 1931 he presented for the first time his work in a collective exhibition at Galerie Drouant-David. Later, between 1935 and 1937, he travelled to London to immerse himself in a new artistic environment and to continue his studies at the Slade School of Art.
When he returned to Paris, he became friends with Kandinsky, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Otto Freundilch and Malevich, who introduced him to the world of abstraction. In his first year after returning to France, he had his first individual exhibition at Galerie Zak, although it wasn’t until 1938 that he showcased his first abstract work at the Salon des Indépendants. From then on, he was labeled as one of the most revolutionary abstract artists in the city, alongside Kandinsky and Malevich. In 1952, he signed with Galerie Bing, which gave him the liberty to quit his job as a cabaret musician and fully dedicate himself to painting.
From his first abstract work until his passing in 1969, his paintings had the objective of researching the relational bidimensional meaning between paint and volume. When he joined the abstract movement, he used bright colors and geometric figures. However, in 1960, he started to implement a darker palette and to get away from architectural concepts, focusing instead on the intensity of color. Despite the visual changes he implemented in his artistic career, Poliakoff’s work was always characterized as pictorial poems that looked for total transparency.
From 1958 until today, his works are showcased in museums around the world. At the Venice Biennale in 1962, he had an entire room dedicated to his work, while the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris curated the biggest retrospective on his life. His paintings can be found in permanent exhibitions of different international institutions, such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, or the MOMA and Guggenheim Museum of New York.
