Serge Poliakoff

Abstract Composition

1954

© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2020

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Not on display

Artist: Serge Poliakoff 1906–1969
Original title: Composition abstraite
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 1159 × 889 mm
frame: 1236 × 965 × 70 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1961
Reference: T00404

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Poliakoff was born in Russia but left in 1919, becoming a travelling musician. He settled in Paris some years later. Although he began painting in the 1930s he was not able to give up his musical profession for painting until 1952. Poliakoff's technique of dividing the canvas into coloured interlocking planes owes much to Cubism.

Gallery label, August 2004

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Catalogue entry

Serge Poliakoff 1906-1969

T00404 Composition abstraite (Abstract Composition) 1954

Inscribed 'SERGE POLIAKOFF' b.l. and 'SERGE POLIAKOFF | 1954' on back of canvas
Oil on canvas, 45 5/8 x 35 (116 x 89)
Purchased from the artist through M. Knoedler & Co., Paris (Grant-in-Aid) 1961
Exh: Art from France, San Francisco Museum of Art, October-December 1956 (works not numbered, repr.) as 'Abstract Composition'; Art Center, La Jolla, December 1956-February 1957 (works not numbered, repr.); Los Angeles County Museum, February-March 1957 (works not numbered, repr.); The 5th International Art Exhibition, Metropolitan Art Gallery, Tokyo, May-June 1959, and tour to Osaka, Takamatsu, Yawata, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Ube, Saseho and Nakamura until November 1959 (59, repr. in illustrated souvenir, French section n.p.); Serge Poliakoff, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, September-November 1970 (40); R?trospective Poliakoff, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Charleroi, September-November 1975 (17)
Repr: Cahiers d'Art, 1956-7, p.350, wrongly dated 1953; Dora Vallier, Serge Poliakoff (Paris 1959), pl.27, wrongly dated 1953

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.616, reproduced p.616