SERGE POLIAKOFF | COMPOSITION AUX FORMES BLANCHES, 1959

Private collection, Sweden

Galerie Art & Public, Geneva

Private collection, Switzerland (acquired from the above by the family of the present owner)

Alexis Poliakoff, Serge Poliakoff, Catalogue Raisonné: 1955-1958, Vol. III, Munich 2010, p. 88, no. 59-62 (illustrated in colour)

Le Figaro Magazine, 18 September 2004, p. 75 (illustrated in colour)

This work is registered in the Archives Serge Poliakoff under number 959069.

It’s only during his second stay in Paris that Serge Poliakoff started to explore abstraction. Having studied the works of Sonia and Robert Delaunay and Wassily Kandinsky, he then developed his own pictorial language: fields of colour in non-geometrical shapes, which today are part of his emblematic and recognizable style.

He explored the infinite possibilities and variations of arranging and rearranging these shapes on the picture place, like a jigsaw puzzle, playing with outlines, colours and proportions, until he arrived at an internal harmony between the elements, just as orchestral musicians tune their instruments in order to perfect their pitch. In the present work, painted in 1959, blue and white shapes stand out of the canvas, approximatively in the middle; they are separated but intrinsically connected, in a “Yin and Yang” compositional balance. Poliakoff aims to bring the viewer to a realm of spirituality, meditation and contemplation.