(Moscow 1906–1969 Paris) Composition abstraite, 1960, signed Serge Poliakoff, oil on canvas, 74 x 93 cm, framed, (PS)

Photo expertise:
Alexis Poliakoff, Archives Serge Poliakoff, 8 June 1984 with additional email confirmation dated 29.9.2012.

Provenance:
White Chapel Gallery London (remains of an old label on the stretcher)
Galerie Orangerie-Reinz (Cologne)

Literature:
Alexis Poliakoff, Serge Poliakoff - catalogue raisonné, Vol. 3, Paris 2011, no. 60.26, p. 163 (colour ill.)

Exhibited:
London, White Chapel Gallery, Serge Poliakoff, 17.4.-19.5.1963
Tokyo, Fuji Television Gallery, Serge Poliakoff, 19.5.-10.6.1978, exhibition cat. no. 8
Osaka, Fuji Television Gallery, Serge Poliakoff, 20.6.-20.7.1978, exhibition cat. no. 8

“Poliakoff’s painting cleaves to the traditional European concept of image in which all elements fit into a harmonious structure within the field of view, all parts relating equally to one another and to the whole. His concept of image also explains the title of almost all Poliakoff’s works: Composition. (...) In view of the severity of the forms, the ever constant schematic of the image composition and the muted colours which are of an almost inner luminance. Poliakoff’s works are occasionally compared to art of the Middle Ages and particularly with Oriental church iconography. It is doubtless correct that Poliakoff’s works particularly invite meditative observation”
(Michael Hesse, Serge Poliakoff, Composition, in: Norbert Kunisch, Erläuterungen zur Modernen Kunst, Bochum 1990, p. 193)