Serge Poliakoff was typical of many young Russian artists caught up in the ferment of art and politics early in the 20th century. Fleeing the Russian Revolution in 1917, he went first to Istanbul and then to Paris. He studied in Paris and at the Slade School in London from 1935. He was thus quite a late developer, meeting Kandinsky at what was for Poliakoff a formative stage. Poliakoff became a notable member of The School of Paris. In 1962 he became a French citizen, like so many of his émigré compatriots.

Poliakoff’s art is nothing if not consistent after WWII. His relationship with the ageing Kandinsky in the late 1930’s drove Poliakoff in the direction of abstract art. Prior to that he had oscillated around the Realist canon, true to his academic roots but unable to find clear bearings in an art world which had been permanently radicalized. Poliakoff’s Kandinskyesque geometric line and color works of the 1940’s are poor indeed compared to the master.

Poliakoff’s strength was as a colorist, and once he had dispensed with line he remained consistent for the rest of his life. His palette went through phases, from brighter to almost monochrome in the late 1950’s and mid-1960’s, but the overwhelming majority of his paintings follow the same pattern: a quadrangular arrangement of rectangular shapes each of one color but repeated in the picture, two, three or four colors only being used. The rectangular canvas is integral to this design, the composition usually being balanced in the corners.

Occasionally he tried diffusing, wavy monochrome patterns (as in the 1958 example below) but invariably reverted to type. Being primarily a colorist, Poliakoff’s trademark is a systematic arrangement of bright complementary colors, in effect linear arrangements of colored geometric blocks.

Today, Poliakoff’s paintings are housed all over the world, and perhaps in your own home. Still wondering about an abstract painting in your family estate? Contact us…it could be by Serge Poliakoff.