Serge Poliakoff

Do you have a piece by Serge Poliakoff in your possession and would like to know its value? Our Experts will carry out a free appraisal of your piece, provide you with an estimate of the market price, and then help you to sell at the best possible price.

Status, estimation and price of the artist Serge Poliakoff

Price of a painting by the artist: 15,000 – 780,000 €.

Price of a drawing by the artist: 10,000 – 100,000 €.

Estimation of a print by the artist: 60 – 6,000 €

Estimation of a tapestry by the artist: 1 700 – 10,000 €.

If you would like to have a work by Serge Poliakoff appraised, our experts will take care of everything.

Life as a musician and discovery of painting

Serge Poliakoff is a French painter of Russian origin. He was born on 8 January 1900 in Moscow and died on 12 October 1969 in Paris. He belonged to the Nouvelle Ecole de Paris. Fascinated by the religious representations he saw at church, he enrolled in the Moscow School of Drawing. He left Russia and moved to Constantinople (today, Istanbul) in 1920 where he lived thanks to his talent for the guitar.

Travelling through the great capitals of Europe like Sofia, Belgrade, Vienna, Berlin and Constantinople, Serge Poliakoff moved to Paris where he performed in Russian cabarets.

He enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in 1929, but it was during a stay in London from 1935-1937 that he discovered abstract art and met Kandinsky as well as Sonia and Robert Delaunay.

At the beginning of the 1950s, he lived near Saint-Germain-des-Prés and played the balalaika for a living.

In 1962, Poliakoff was exhibited at the Venice Biennale where he even given his own room. He was naturalised as a French citizen the same year and his works were exhibited in European and New York museums. He is now one of the key artists of the École de Paris, a movement of the beginning of the 20th century which continued until the 1960s. The Whitechapel Gallery in London devoted a retrospective to him in 1963.

Posthumous Consecration

Serge Poliakoff is buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.

In 1970, he was consecrated with his first exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris and two years later it was exhibited at the Galerie Herve Odermatt in Paris.

In 2013-2014, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris dedicated a retrospective of more than 150 canvases painted between 1946 and 1969 to the abstract painter.

Poliakoff stated: “The painting should be monumental, that is to say, larger than its dimensions.”

In 1935, Serge Poliakoff met his future wife, Marcelle Perreur Loyd form Great Britain, who was to remain his greatest support.

In June 2011, the sale organised by Ferri & Associés broke a world record of 1,077,840 euros for a single painting by Serge Poliakoff – Abstract composition, 1954 came from a private collection belonging to Rena and Jean-Louis Dumas.

A gouache by Serge Poliakoff was sold for 53,500 euros at an auction in Rennes, France in 2016.

Recognising Serge Poliakoff’s signature

Like many artists, Poliakoff did not sign all of his works. However, you will find below an example of the signatures to give you an idea. Variations of these signatures do exist, do not hesitate to contact one of our experts to formally authenticate a signature.

Appraising and selling a piece by Serge Poliakoff

If you own a piece by Serge Poliakoff or any other object, ask for a free estimate via our online form.

You will then be contacted by a member of our team of experts and auctioneers to give you an independent view of the market price of your piece. In the context of a possible sale, our specialists will also advise you on the different options available to sell your work at the best price.