Poliakoff was born in Russia but left in 1919, becoming a travelling musician. He settled in Paris some years later. Although he began painting in the 1930s he was not able to give up his musical profession for painting until 1952. ..
Poliakoffs paintings are comprised of closed, fairly austere forms that are pressing against each other. Each plane has a single worked-through, obfuscated color; the colors border each other and thus determine the form of each plane…