570 - Serge Poliakoff (1900, Moscow – Paris, 1969)

Serge Poliakoff (1900, Moscow – Paris, 1969) Abstract Composition Gouache on blue-gray Ingres handmade paper. (1960). Approx. 48.5 x 63 cm. Signed lower right. Illegible inscription on the reverse (presumably a dedication) as well as notes in another hand. Poliakoff 60-109. • Serge Poliakoff is considered one of the most important representatives of European color-field painting • “Composition abstraite” is a harmoniously balanced composition from his mature, late period • Using the gouache technique, he creates both transparent and dense areas of color Through his classical, academic early work beginning in 1935, Serge Poliakoff found his way to abstraction and, in the years that followed, developed a formal language based on pure color that no longer contained any representational references. Poliakoff drew significant inspiration from Wassily Kandinsky, the artist couple Robert and Sonia Delaunay, and the sculptor Otto Freundlich. Despite these prominent role models, Poliakoff soon developed a highly individual and, to this day, entirely distinctive form of abstract painting. In 1945, the Galerie L’Esquisse in Paris presented Poliakoff’s first purely abstract exhibition. His growing success also had a noticeable financial impact in the years that followed, allowing Poliakoff to devote himself exclusively to painting, having previously earned his living as a musician as well. Poliakoff says of his art: “One must not forget that every form has two colors: the inner and the outer.” This statement describes the artist’s constant endeavor to explore the relationship between forms and color, as well as between background and form. In doing so, he repeatedly reduces both the forms and the colors, simplifies them, alters their relative weight, and plays with the rhythm and resonance of color. Initially, Poliakoff’s color fields were still within a more subdued color spectrum; beginning in the 1950s, the color palette lightened significantly. The color density of the individual forms generally increases toward the center of the picture; their contours are always slightly curved and gently overlap, creating barely perceptible vibrations and rhythms within the image. The balanced proportions of the forms within the pictorial space and the finely harmonious gradation of colors—even in the 1960 gouache “Composition abstraite,” which consists solely of shades of blue mixed with white, to a unique, meditative effect that is so characteristic of Poliakoff’s painting. “I still remember well how my father (…) took me into the morning stillness of his studio to introduce me to his method of composing a painting. (…) He began by selecting pigments from his deliberately limited color palette: two shades of blue, two shades of red, one green, one yellow, one black, and one white. Using these, he achieved a richness and variety of hues through the transparency of the layers painted on top of one another. The ground pigment was carefully mixed with a binder on a Glass top using a painting knife. The resulting paint was then applied without hesitation, but with precision, to two or three of the forms, so that they could take their place in the composition and echo one another.” Alexis Poliakoff (quoted in: WVZ Vol. III, p. 10). Provenance: Galerie Berggruen, Paris; Galerie d’Arte Lorenzelli, Bergamo; Galerie von Vertes; Private collection, Vienna (2011); Private collection, Bavaria. Taxation: subject to margin scheme (VAT: Margin Scheme).