Serge Poliakoff (1900-1969)
Lot 357

Serge Poliakoff (1900-1969)

Lie de vin

Closed17 October 2014

Price Realised

GBP 74,500

More Information

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Serge Poliakoff (1900-1969)
Lie de vin
signed ‘SERGE POLIAKOFF’ (lower left)
oil on canvas
31 7/8 x 25 5/8in. (81.2 x 65cm.)
Painted in 1962

Knoedler & Co., New York.
Galerie Stangl, Munich.
Galerie Thomas, Munich.
Anon. sale, Sotheby’s London, 22 June 2007, lot 160.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Specialist note

This work is registered in the Archives of Serge Poliakoff under no. 962003.

'If you let it, your colour will take charge of you. 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 pictorical 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).