Moscow, 1900 – Paris, 1969

Serge Poliakoff was born in Moscow in 1900. In 1917 during the Russian Revolution he fled, reaching Paris six years later after a long wandering. Here he attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and exhibited at the Galerie Drouant in 1931. In 1935, he moved to London, where he attended courses at the Slade School of Art and was fascinated by Egyptian art, which he saw at the British Museum.
He returned to Paris where he frequented Wassily Kandinsky, Sonia and Robert Delaunay and Otto Freundlich. His painting evolved towards abstraction, perfecting the interweaving of colour fields. In 1945, he presented his first abstract paintings at Galerie L’Esquisse in Paris, which was followed by solo and group exhibitions of abstract art at Galerie Denise René.

While in the 1940s his palette is predominantly grey tones, in the 1950s he also includes light, bright colours. Exhibitions in international museums and institutions followed, including a large solo show in 1953 at the A.P.I.A.W. in Liège and the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. In 1962 he was invited to exhibit with a solo room at the XXXI Venice Biennale, while in 1965 he received the International Prize of the Tokyo Biennale.
He died in Paris in 1969.

© SERGE POLIAKOFF, by SIAE