Serge POLIAKOFF (1900–1969)

Title: Composition
Medium: Color screenprint (1966, posthumous edition 1992)
Publisher: Galerie Melki, Éditions Hazan, Paris
Signature: Signed in the plate lower right
Dimensions: 32.5 × 40.5 cm (without margins); 40 × 50 cm (with margins)

Description and Critical Analysis of the Work

In this Composition, Poliakoff brings into play bold fields of color—cobalt blue, vivid red, deep black, radiant yellow—structured against a pale background that orders and balances the relationships of forms. True to his 1960s aesthetic, the artist avoids narrative, focusing instead on the pure language of color and surface.

The irregular shapes, interlocking like fragments of polished stone, unfold within an organic geometry where each hue seems to breathe. The monumental presence of blue, cut through by flashes of red and yellow, creates a vibrant balance: nothing is decorative, everything is rhythm and tension. Here we find Poliakoff’s signature strength—his ability to transform abstraction into a space of meditation, at once intimate and universal.

Although produced posthumously, the screenprint preserves the density of his color fields and the subtlety of his textures. It embodies what critic Michel Ragon described as Poliakoff’s “silent music”: an art in which color becomes an autonomous energy.

Biographical Note – Serge Poliakoff

Born in Moscow in 1900, Serge Poliakoff fled Russia in 1917 after the revolution. Passing through Constantinople, Sofia, and Belgrade, he finally settled in Paris in 1923. There, he studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière while supporting himself with odd jobs.

In the 1930s, he lived in London, where he discovered abstract painting under the influence of Sonia and Robert Delaunay, Kandinsky, and Otto Freundlich. Returning to Paris in 1937, he became part of the non-figurative abstraction movement, alongside Hartung, Schneider, Deyrolle, and Bazaine.

Poliakoff soon developed a distinctive language: closed compositions built from irregular, interlocking shapes, sustained by intense color fields and deep tonal contrasts. By the 1950s, he had achieved international recognition, exhibiting in major European galleries and participating in prestigious biennales.

In 1962, he obtained French citizenship and was honored with a dedicated room at the Venice Biennale. His works entered the world’s leading collections, including the Centre Pompidou, the Tate Gallery, and MoMA.

Serge Poliakoff died in Paris in 1969, leaving behind a body of work of timeless strength—an art where color and form, freed from representation, continue to resonate as a universal language.