Born into a large family, Serge Poliakoff left Russia in 1918 upon outbreak of the Revolution and travelled to Constantinople, Sofia, Belgrade and Vienna before arriving in Paris, where he set up residence in 1923. From 1929 and after having attended courses in various academies he enrolled at the Grande Chaumière in the Montparnasse district. The first exhibition of his work was in a collective display in the Galerie Drouant in 1931. Continuing his artistic formation, he moved to London where he lived from 1935 to 1937, attending the Slade School of Fine Art. On his return to Paris he met the painters Sonia and Robert Delaunay and as a result of this friendship exhibited his first abstract painting in 1938, receiving the admiration of Kandinsky. Thus Poliakoff’s figurative stage would give way to his conception of abstract painting creating form through the arrangement of fields of colour. He continued exhibiting individually as from 1945, receiving great acclaim and being awarded the Kandinsky Prize in 1947, an award intended to promote young, abstract painters. The exhibitions in Paris proceeded, along with others further afield (Copenhagen, England and Japan), and in 1952 Poliakoff was able to abandon his trade as a musician and dedicate himself fully to paining.
He took part in Documenta II (1958) and III (1964) in Kassel and in the Venice Biennial (1962), and was awarded the International Prize at the Tokyo Biennial (1965) and the Grand Prize at the Menton Biennial (1966). Many European museums and art centers have organized retrospectives on his work, like for example, the Whitechapel Gallery in London (1963), the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris (1970) and the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art (1971), among others. His work forms part of the collections of such prestigious museums as the Tate Collection in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid.
DISEÑO WEB MALLORCA