Serge Ponomarew

Serge Ponomarew was born in Minsk on 20 August 1911. The revolution and the war carried his family west, and by 1920 he was in Vilnius, where he began his artistic studies. In 1932 he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, studying sculpture under Henri Bouchard; three years later he returned to Poland, where he received commissions, among them work for a church in Vilnius. Back in Paris in 1937, he completed his studies in 1944 and settled in France for good.

Sculptor, medallist and painter, Ponomarew showed at the Salon des Indépendants, the Salon d’Automne, the Salon des Artistes Français, the Salon des Tuileries, Comparaisons, Art Animalier and Art Sacré, and received commissions for medals from the Paris Mint. Sculpture dominated his work into the late 1950s; the paintings of his later years, landscapes, gardens and flowers, are built from thick dabs of pure colour in a personal, decorative pointillism. He died in 1984 (some sources give 1983). His name also appears as Ponomarev and Ponomarjoff.