Composition abstraite

Details

Poliakoff V 67-70.

Exhibition:

Serge Poliakoff, Fuji Television Gallery, Tokyo/Osaka 1978, cat. no. 20, with illus., on the reverse on the stretcher with the label.

Provenance:

Knud Thorbjørnsen Collection (1941-2001), Copenhagen;

Private collection, Geneva;

Gallery Melki, Paris;

Private collection, Monaco.

Descrizione

– Serge Poliakoff’s mature late work from his most sought-after period

– Dynamic composition thanks to different surface textures and an intense red-blue contrast

– From the famous art collection of the Danish music promoter Knud Thorbjørnsen

“I still remember well how my father (…) took me into the quiet of his studio in the morning to introduce me to his method of constructing pictures. (…) He began by selecting pigments from his deliberately limited colour palette: two blues, two reds, one green, one yellow, one black and one white. With these, he achieved a richness and variety of colour tones through the transparency of the layers painted on top of each other. The ground pigment was carefully mixed with binder on a glass plate using a painting knife. The resulting colour was then applied without hesitation but with precision to two or three of the forms so that they could take their place in the composition and echo each other.” Alexis Poliakoff (quoted from: WVZ vol. III, p. 10).

Serge Poliakoff’s early work, which was influenced by his classical-academic training, led him to abstraction from 1935 onwards and in the following years he developed a formal language of pure colour that no longer had any representational references. Poliakoff received important inspiration from Wassily Kandinsky and the artist couple Robert and Sonia Delaunay as well as the sculptor Otto Freundlich. Despite these prominent role models, Poliakoff soon developed a very individual form of abstract painting that is still very distinctive today. In 1945, the Galerie L’Esquisse in Paris showed Poliakoff’s first purely abstract exhibition. In the following years, Poliakoff’s increasing success also had an economic impact, enabling him to devote himself exclusively to painting after previously earning a living as a musician.

Initially, Poliakoff’s colour surfaces are still in a more muted colour spectrum, but from the 1950s onwards the colour palette brightens considerably. The colour density of the individual forms increases towards the centre of the picture, their contours are always slightly curved, resulting in barely perceptible vibrations and rhythms in the picture. The balanced proportions of the forms in the pictorial space and the finely harmonious gradation of the colours lead to a unique, meditative effect that is so characteristic of Poliakoff’s painting. The “Compositon abstraite” from 1967 is given a special dynamic by the strong red-blue contrast and the various surface structures. Today, Poliakoff is one of the most important representatives of European colour field painting.

The painting comes from the art collection of Danish concert organiser Knud Thorbjørnsen. He organised the only Beatles concert in Denmark in 1964 and brought major international musicians such as the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa and Liza Minelli to Denmark for the first time. As a manager, he looked after the famous Danish bands Gasolin’ and Shu-bi-dua.