Serge Poliakoff was a Russian-born French modernist artist and lithographer, one of the most widely recognized of the abstract colourists who thrived after the Second World War. He was associated with the European expressionist Taschisme movement and the CoBrA group.
Background
Mr. Poliakoff was born in Moscow, Russian Empire (nowadays Russian Federation), on January 8, 1900. He was the thirteenth of fourteen children in his family. Serge Poliakoff's father supplied the army with horses that he bred himself; he also owned a racing stable. The artist's mother was closely involved with the church. So religious icons fascinated Poliakoff from an early childhood.
Education
Serge Poliakoff started his education at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (later the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow). However, in 1918 he fled Russia. In 1929 Poliakoff attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
Career
In 1920 Poliakoff arrived in Constantinople. He made the profits from his talent as a guitarist. Before settling in Paris in 1923, he lived for some time in Sofia, Belgrade, Vienna, and Berlin, while continuing to play in Russian cabarets. Poliakoff’s first group show occurred at the Galerie Drouant-David, Paris, in 1931.
The artist's paintings initially were purely academic. But during his stay in London between 1935 and 1937, he discovered the abstract art and luminous colours of the Egyptian sarcophagi. While in London, he got acquainted with Sonia and Robert Delaunay, Wassily Kandinsky, and Otto Freundlich. It totally changed his painting style. With such strong influences, Serge Poliakoff quickly became one of the most established painters of his generation. He developed his own style of abstract painting featuring interlocking areas of colour. In the 1940s, his palette was limited to different shades of grey and black. In the 1950s, he expanded his set and began to use bright colors.
When he returned to Paris, his first solo exhibition was organized at Galerie Zak in 1937. Poliakoff exhibited his abstract painting for the first time in 1938 at the Salon des Indépendants. He participated regularly in it until 1945, when Galerie L’Equisse, Paris, held a one-man exhibition of his work. He also exhibited his artworks in the late 1940s at the Galerie Denise René, Paris, alongside his contemporaries, including César Domela, Auguste Herbin, and Gérard Schneider. In 1962 he earned an entire room in the Venice Biennial, and the same year he became a French citizen.
Along with Hans Hartung, Jean Dubuffet, and Nicolas de Staël, Serge Poliakoff was considered to be a member of the "new" École de Paris (School of Paris) following World War II. His abstractions generally consisted of irregular, adjoining geometric lines and forms in striking, self-revealing colours. At the end of his life, he suffered health troubles, leading to the production of smaller scale paintings and lithographs.
Religion
Poliakoff was raised by a religious mother. As a child, he attended church almost daily.