Christie’s roundel
Lot 189 PROPERTY FROM THE VIKTOR AND MARIANNE LANGEN COLLECTION

SERGE POLIAKOFF (1900-1969)

Composition abstraite

Closed2 July 2014

Price Realised

GBP 170,500

More Information

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SERGE POLIAKOFF (1900-1969)
Composition abstraite
signed ‘SERGE POLIAKOFF’ (lower left)
oil on canvas
28 5/8 x 45 ½in. (72.8 x 115.8cm.)
Painted in 1957

Galerie Otto Stangl, Munich.
Victor and Marianne Langen, Meerbusch (acquired from the above in August 1957).
Thence by descent from the above to the present owners.

Specialist note

‘Similarly with your forms: the spontaneous form for an artist to use is always an organic one, but you’ve got to be in control of it. A child will use all the colours in the box at once, instinctively, and if you don’t want to make that same mistake you’ve got to on studying hard and for a long time. There is no such a thing as a system of pictorial construction, but there are certain universal laws that you can find out for yourself if you study the big masters long enough. It’s the law, not the ‘system’, that counts’
(S. Poliakoff, quoted in Serge Poliakoff, Retrospective 1938-1963, exh. cat, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1963, p. 13).