Lot 541 | Serge Poliakoff | Composition Abstraite

POLIAKOFF, SERGE
1900 Moscow - 1969 Paris

Title: Composition Abstraite.
Date: 1953.
Technique: Gouache on laid paper.
Measurement: 65 x 50cm.
Notation: Signed and dated lower left: SERGE POLIAKOFF 53 VIII.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.

Provenance:
- Campo, Brussels, auction, 25th April 1977, lot 297
- Galerie Guy Pieters, Knokke (acc. to consignor)
- Private collection North Rhine-Westphalia

Literature:
- Poliakoff, Alexis: Serge Poliakoff - Catalogue Raisonné, vol. I, 1922- 1954, Paris/Moudon 2004, cat. rais. no. 53-23, ill.

- Poliakoff's gouaches are always an equally important means of expression for him alongside his paintings
- Particularly captivating due to the extremely harmonious colour scheme
- Visually very concise composition due to the density of colours, lines and forms

When Serge Poliakoff painted this harmonious and dynamic gouache in August 1953, the turbulent life of the Russian migrant in Paris had calmed down.Since the previous year, the artist had been able to make a living from his fine art thanks to a permanent gallery relationship, whereas previously he had had to secure the income of his small family as a guitarist. Serge Poliakoff had long been highly esteemed in artistic circles, but at the beginning of the 1950s critics and collectors also began to take notice of him. In 1953, the year this work was created, the artist had his first ever major solo exhibition in Belgium. In the same year, he also had his first solo exhibition in the USA (Circle & Square Gallery, New York). Gouaches on paper, which Serge Poliakoff was able to paint easily in cramped living conditions without a studio from the 1940s onwards, remained an equally important means of expression for the artist alongside oil paintings in later times. The present sheet initially captivates the viewer with its harmony of colours: Warm earth and green tones are distributed across the rectangular surface in such a way that the brown tones appear more on the lower half of the sheet, the green colour values more on the upper half. There are also shades of blue in gradations up to grey and (a little) beige. Serge Poliakoff places the coloured elements in such a way as to create compositional lines: A vertical line runs slightly to the left of the centre and a horizontal line, roughly in the middle of the right-hand half of the picture. And then there are the two diagonal lines which, coming from the two right corners of the sheet, meet in the centre of the left edge of the sheet. Curves and angles, overpainting and underpainting: This sheet is so rich that it appears almost collaged. The dynamic rhythm of this gouache is reminiscent of works by Paul Klee, who shared Serge Poliakoff's dual talent as a painter and musician.