Serge Poliakoff

Serge Poliakoff was a leading figure in post-war abstraction and a key member of the New School of Paris —the generation of artists that followed Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and the first wave of the 20th-century European avant-garde. After becoming a French citizen in 1962, Russian-born Poliakoff presented his work in the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He painted abstract canvases using rich colors thought to be drawn from the religious icons he encountered as a child in Russia. His style is most often associated with Tachisme, which was Europe’s answer to Abstract Expressionism. Poliakoff fled his native Moscow in the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, performing as a traveling musician throughout Europe until he eventually settled in Paris. The work of Wassily Kandinsky and Sonia and Robert Delaunay greatly influenced his use of asymmetrical forms and bold colors. Starting in the 1940s, his style came to be characterized by interlocking fields of color.