Serge Poliakoff (1900-1969) Lot n° 5

Portrait of a young man - Académie Frochot 1940 Charcoal and gouache on paper signed and dated lower right 79 x 58.5 cm Provenance: > Former Collection Jacques Pourchot, photographer > Private collection, Vincennes Bibliography: > Serge Poliakoff, Catalogue Raisonné, Volume I, 1922-1954, Alexis Poliakoff, Acatos Publishing, Paris, 2005, reproduced under no. 40-239 p. 202 Exhibitions: > 1973, Paris, l'Enseigne du Cerceau, Serge Poliakoff Condition report: framed, thumbtack holes in corners Serge Poliakoff settled in Paris in 1923, having fled Russia in 1918. Between 1935 and 1937, he discovered abstraction in London! A close friend of Kandinsky and Otto Freundlich, he also developed a close friendship with the couple Robert and Sonia Delaunay. It was during this extremely influential period - of which our drawing is a precious witness! - that he left figurative academism behind and built up his abstraction with the flat tints of color that would make him one of the greatest abstract painters of his generation.