1900-1969
Born in Moscow into a large Kyrgyz-Russian family, Poliakoff left after the revolution and reached Paris in 1923, supporting himself for years as a guitarist in Russian cabarets. He came to painting late and to abstraction later still, after meeting Kandinsky and the Delaunays in the thirties.
His mature work is built from interlocking irregular planes of colour, each edge negotiated against its neighbour, the surface worked until the pigment turns matte and mineral. He became one of the central figures of the École de Paris. He died in Paris in 1969.
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