Sonia Delaunay

SONIA DELAUNAY (Odessa, 1885 - Paris, 1979).
"Projet de tissu", ca.1920's.
Gouache on paper.
Provenance: Doyle auction, New York.
Measurements: 42.5 x 31 cm; 57 x 46 cm (frame).

Sonia Delaunay's "Tissu Project" was an innovative approach to textile design that integrated the principles of Orphic art into garments. The Tissue Project represents an avant-garde fusion of art and design. Sonia, along with Robert Delaunay, engendered Orphism, an artistic movement exploring the use of color and geometric-kinetic abstraction. From this research, Sonia explored the plastic possibilities applied to fashion and design, achieving dynamic and vibrant patterns. Another key idea was the idea of simultaneity: the consideration that colors interact with each other when placed side by side, creating a sense of movement and depth. Sonia applied this theory to painting and textile design.

Born Sonia Ilínichna Stern, Sonia Delaunay is better known by her married name, which she adopted after marrying Robert Delaunay. A French painter and designer of Ukrainian origin, she was, along with her husband, one of the main representatives of abstract art, as well as the creator of simultanism. She grew up in St. Petersburg, in contact with the collection of paintings of the Barbizon School of her uncle and with the cultural life of the city. In 1903 she moved to Germany to further her education, where she discovered contemporary painting and studied drawing with Schmidt-Reuter. Two years later he moved to Paris and enrolled in the Academie de la Palette, where he was also initiated in engraving by Grossman. During these years he approached the European avant-garde through German expressionism, with a work that also reveals echoes of post-impressionism. In 1908 he held his first exhibition, showing works from his recently initiated Fauvist period. Two years later he married Delaunay, with whom he shared aesthetic concerns. Their art then underwent a change of direction, towards abstraction. The artist will then move towards the decorative arts, always with a purely abstract colorist language that will attract the attention of her peers and also of the critics. Although in 1912 she returned to painting, her fame as a designer had already been established throughout Europe. From then on, she frequently participated in important European exhibitions, such as the Berlin Autumn Salon or the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. During the First World War she lived in Spain and Portugal, where she developed an intense creative activity, including collaboration with Diaghilev's ballet. In 1921 the couple returned to Paris, where Sonia Delaunay continued to work on important projects, in addition to exhibiting her work both in Europe and the United States. Already fully recognized from the fifties onwards, compilations of her work began to be published, and in fact in 1958 her first retrospective exhibition was dedicated to her in Bielefeld (Germany). In addition, in 1975 she was named officer of the French Legion of Honor. Currently Delaunay is represented in major collections around the world, including the MoMA in New York, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Albertina in Vienna and Haifa in Israel.