Serge Poliakoff (1900-1969)
Abstract composition, 1964.
Oil on canvas. H. 162 ; W. 130 cm.
Lyon, musée des Beaux-Arts.
© Photo Lyon MBA, A. Basset.
Born in Moscow in 1900, Serge Poliakoff fled Russia in 1917 and settled in Paris in 1923. In the 1930s he discovered abstract art and met Sonia Delaunay...
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Serge Poliakoff (1900-1969)
Abstract composition, 1964.
Oil on canvas. H. 162 ; W. 130 cm.
Lyon, musée des Beaux-Arts.
© Photo Lyon MBA, A. Basset.
Born in Moscow in 1900, Serge Poliakoff fled Russia in 1917 and settled in Paris in 1923. In the 1930s he discovered abstract art and met Sonia Delaunay, Vassily Kandinsky, etc. They permitted him to take his place as one of the main representatives of abstraction in the New School of Paris. By mimling his Russian roots, the Byzantin tradition of icons and his interest in contemporary models. Poliakoff forged a most remarkable art form halfway between archaic expressiveness and modernity. The Composition executed in 1964 is exceptional for its size and bears witness to the artist's final years of creativity: the colored shapes harmonize more freely and transform the picture into a space that is purely pictorial.
The printing and the making of this stole have been entrusted to a studio in Lyon which has, since 1890, carried on a tradition born in the 15th century: the manufacture of fine fabrics and priting on silk squares. In order to magnify the vibrancy of the colours and impart to them lightness, softness and delicacy, the motif is printed on a piece of pongee silk. As for luxury silk, scarves, this stole is hemmed by hand. The craft of hand hemming, formerly quite widespread in France, is today rare - only a few artists' studios continue to perpetuate this knowhow.
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