One of the most recognized abstract colorists and tachists after WWII, Serge Poliakoff was born in 1900 in Moscow. As an adolescent, he enrolled at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He fled the Russian Revolution in 1917 then settled in Paris in 1923, where he studied painting at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and the Académie Forchot in Montmartre. From 1935 - 1937 Poliakoff stayed in London and attended the Slade School of Art. He discovered the abstract works of Wassily Kandinsky and the couple Robert and Sonia Delaunay that had a profound impact on his understanding of color, encouraging him to go pure abstraction.

Poliakoff’s abstract work features irregular geometric forms, which are simple, made by pure colors and harmoniously combined into a balanced composition. The forms are arranged with rigor that one fit into another, with the vibrancy of color and texture, creating an unique energetic tension. His works are included in the collections of MoMA in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, the Malmö Konsthall in Sweden, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., among others. Recent exhibitions include: “Serge Poliakoff: The Dream of Forms”, Musée d’art moderne de Paris (2013); “Serge Poliakoff: Silent Paintings”, Timothy Taylor Gallery, London (2015).