(Moscow 1906–1969 Paris)
Rouge, 1957, signed Serge Poliakoff (.. oliakoff poorly legible), monogrammed S. P., dedicated ‘pour Nicolas’, gouache on paper laid down on canvas, 46 x 55 cm, framed, (PS)

Provenance:
Galerie Ariel, Paris (old gallery label on the stretcher)
Galerie Berggruen, Paris

Literature:
Alexis Poliakoff, Serge Poliakoff - Catalogue Raisonné, 2010, vol II, 1955-1958, nos 57–110 (with ill.)
Dora Vallier, Serge Poliakoff, Les Cahier d’Arts, Paris 1959, no.42 ill. n&b, p. 76

It was the varied, overlapping layers of colour on an Egyptian sarcophagus at the British Museum in London which inspired Serge Poliakoff to design his own colour field painting, using a similar technique in order to achieve a particular colour effect. He produced the paints for his works himself using powder pigments, mixing them on a glass plate with water, oil, sometimes a little egg yolk and sand. The exceptional depth of his colour fields reflects the nature of the paints he produced for his works, and of the deliberately superimposed layers of colour. Each area in Poliakoff’s paintings exhibits its own texture, the consequence of its manner of application. In the present work ‘Rouge’ this is the variety of nuanced red tones, applied in repeated layers, and infused by a brown-black internal structure, itself partly covered by another layer of red. The colour fields in Poliakoff’s works intermesh, suggesting a spatial relationship caused by the optical impact of the colours, their ability to shorten and deepen perspective, which is inherent in the nature of the colours themselves.