Additional Images

Provenance:

Galerie Jourdan, Montreal, QC
Private Collection, Montreal, QC

Note:

Sonia Delaunay’s contribution to the progression of Abstract art in the early 20th century cannot be understated. Born in Ukraine and educated in St. Petersburg, Delaunay moved to Paris at the age of 21. Her second marriage, in 1910 to fellow artist Robert Delaunay, gave Sonia a reason to stay in Paris, where she and her husband would rise to the top of the avant-garde.

Contrary to Cyril Connolly’s oft-quoted aphorism that “there is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall,” Delaunay’s great breakthrough came from a little blanket she made for her son Charles in 1911. The patterning inspired the artist to move from figuration to abstraction and “shows how Sonia melded Russian folk-craft with Parisian avant garde, and anticipated the experiments with colour and shape that would become the Delaunay hallmark style, simultané.”

The Delaunays, working closely together, “began to explore the visual properties of contrasting colours—colours opposite one another on the colour wheel. The pairing of two such colours, they realised, heightened the optical intensity, making both colours appear more vivid than they would on their own.” The 1910s were an explosive creative period for both artists, with Sonia writing that “we had rediscovered the moving principle of any work of art: the light, the movement of colour.” They would call their style “simultanéisme” (“Simultanism”), a focus on the simultaneous contrast of colours.

Delaunay designed clothing and textiles while also working in graphic design and painting. Her work blurred boundaries between genres – a very modernist way of working – which may have accounted for later critics ignoring her mighty contributions to the visual realm. Delaunay prefigured our present moment of artists and clothing houses working in tandem, viewing wearable art as equal to works on canvas, conceptualised by Delaunay as “walking poems.” She designed costumes for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, and in the 1930s, opened a Paris atelier to make textiles and clothing. Her radical exploration of colour had become a signature brand.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, the Delaunays left Paris for the South of France. Robert died in 1941, and Sonia dedicated herself to securing his lasting reputation. She began painting more frequently, in oil and gouache. While her palette became more muted, her geometric explorations of colour deviated little from her earlier work. Over her long career, Delaunay would draw inspiration from craft traditions from her Eastern European childhood, while also imagining the future.

By the end of her career, Delaunay’s contributions to modern art were being recognized by a new women’s movement. Delaunay was the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre, and her work has been exhibited in major museums including the Centre Pompidou, the Tate Modern, the Smithsonian Design Museum, the Musée d’art moderne de Paris, and the Musée des arts decoratifs.