Pioneering 20th-century abstract artist Sonia Delaunay was known for ignoring the distinction between fine art and applied design. Her body of work encompassed not only paintings and prints but also book illustrations, women’s and men’s fashions, costumes for theater and dance, film sets, wallpaper, furniture and interior decor. More than an expression of her prolific talent, this varied output was her way of erasing the boundary between life and art.
Born Sara Elievna Stern in 1885 to a working-class Jewish family in Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire), she was adopted as a child by a wealthy maternal uncle in St. Petersburg, who saw to her well-rounded education. There, she picked up the nickname Sonia.
At the age of 18, she left Russia for Germany to study painting, and in 1905, she landed in Paris, where she enrolled in art school. She soon dropped out but continued creating art, producing canvases strongly influenced by Fauvism. Following a brief marriage to gallery owner Wilhelm Uhde, she married fellow artist Robert Delaunay (1885–1941) in 1910. After the birth of her son, Charles, in 1911, she crafted a patchwork crib cover that she considered her first truly abstract piece.
No matter the medium, Delaunay’s passion was color. She and her husband were the main exponents of Orphism, a branch of Cubism defined by abstract compositions and bright shades. They saw their creations as experiments in Simultanéisme, or Simultanism, a color theory based on the work of scientist Michel Eugène Chevreul (1786–1889), who studied the ways in which a given hue can look different depending on the ones around it.
The Delaunays noted that certain pairings seemed to generate a vibration in the eye of the beholder. They felt that this movement captured the dynamism of modern urban life. The couple generally expressed the ideas underpinning Simultanism in their work with flat, overlapping panes of color. In fact, Sonia’s cradle cover melded their tenets with the traditions of Russian-peasant patchwork (also a big Constructivist inspiration).
Seeking to integrate Simultanism into all aspects of life, she designed other abstractly patterned furnishings for their home, which had become a gathering place for the avant-garde, and she worked the designs into their clothes, too, which she and Robert would wear throughout the city and to dance halls — behavior that today would likely be described as performance. In addition to performance, Sonia’s work presaged many other avant-garde movements, such as kinetic art and Op art.
After the upheavals of World War I and the 1917 Russian Revolution, Delaunay retooled herself and opened a business. Keeping her devotion to color juxtaposition front and center, she launched a fabric and fashion atelier where she created textiles, wearable pieces, interior decor and furniture, sometimes collaborating with cabinetmaker Adolphe Chanaux.
Clients who may have found an abstract painting intimidating or inaccessible could enjoy the bright pattern on a cloche-and-scarf set Delaunay created or the striped handbag she designed. In this way, she brought her art into their everyday lives. Her colorful abstract design on a textile or rug could very well have been applied to one of her canvases and hung on a wall or vice versa.
While many women artists of the period were herded away from the fine arts and toward crafts (think Anni Albers), Delaunay was able to do it all. And what’s also so appealing about her oeuvre, to contemporary eyes, is the sense that Delaunay pursued everything — be it painting or fashion or costuming or furniture or graphic design — with equal vigor, without making distinctions between mediums.
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Dinosaure Print by Le Corbusier, Etched Modern Artwork, Signed 2/100
By Le Corbusier
Located in Berlin, BE
"Dinosaure" by Le Corbusier. Signed in pencil and numbered 2/100. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (1887 – 1965), known as Le Corbusier, was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, ...
Paper
Still Life Woodcut Print, Mid-Century Modern, Denmark, 1942
By Vilhelm Lundstrøm
Located in Berlin, BE
Vilhelm Lundstrøm Still life, 1942. Unsigned. Woodcut. Visible size 24.5×32.5 cm. Published by the Danish art magazine Klingen, 1942. Vilhelm Lundstrøm was a danish artist, born in...
Paper
Prinzessin C-Print on Fuji-Colour Paper, Signed, Mid-Century Modern
By Cosima von Bonin
Located in Berlin, BE
'Prinzessin' by Cosima von Bonin 1992 C-Print auf Fuji-Colour paper. Signed, dated and numbered on verso. - Framed under passepartout. 1 of 3 prints. 32 x 24 cm. The conceptual arti...
Paper
Composition by Mikael Pasternak
By Mikael Pasternak
Located in Berlin, BE
Composition by Mikael Pasternak, 1920. Gouache on Paper, 62 x 51 cm. Mikael Pasternak (born 1905 in Riga, died 1967 in Virum) came around 1920 at a very young age to the Academy of Fine Arts in Riga, where he was trained as a painter and draftsman. On a study trip to Paris he met the young Danish girl, Anne Margrethe Petersen from Roskilde and married her in 1927. The couple lived in Riga, where Pasternak was a cartoonist for weeklies and newspapers. When Pasternak came to Denmark in 1935, he started drawing at Politiken's Sunday supplement "Magasinet", which had its heyday from 1922-1963. The magazine was very popular due to cartoonists such as Aage Sikker Hansen, Arne Ungermann, Ib Andersen and Mikael Pasternak. In the beginning, he also decorated shop windows. During the war, the family lived in Hulby near Slagelse, and he was a regular cartoonist at Sorø Amtstidende. Later, the family moved to Copenhagen, and Pasternak became a freelance artist. Among other things. he was a regular illustrator at Svikmøllen from 1946-1954 - and for many years he provided illustrations for Illustreret Familie Journal. His postcard production is not large; but shortly after he came to Denmark around 1936-37, he made a series of lovely Christmas postcards...
Paper
Set of Wood Table and Four Chairs by Gigi Sabadin, circa 1970
By Gigi Sabadin
Located in Berlin, BE
Set of wood table and four chairs by Gigi Sabadin, circa 1970 A suite of four chairs, with inverted V-shaped legs supporting the seat shells in the...
Wood
Two oak chairs with upholstered cushions in merino by Rasmussen’s Snedkerier
By Rud Rasmussen
Located in Berlin, BE
Two oak side chairs by Rud. Rasmussen’s Snedkerier, Copenhagen, crafted in the first half of the 20th century. Made by one of Denmark’s most respected cabinetmaking workshops, the ch...
Oak
"Untitled composition" lithography by Sonia Delaunay 1969
By Sonia Delaunay
Located in Renens, CH
Sonia Delaunay, "Untitled composition", 1969 Lithograph in colors on wove paper by Ukrainian born French artist Sonia Delaunay ( 1885-1979 ). Signed in pencil lower right edge; n...
Paper
Sonia Delaunay Color Lithography Framed, circa 1970
By Sonia Delaunay
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Lithography by Sonia Delaunay. Provenance: France Framed Not signed. Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) was a Ukrainian-born French artist, who spent most of her working life in Paris and, with her husband Robert Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colors and geometric shapes. Her work extends to painting, textile design and stage set design...
Paper
Original etching by SONIA DELAUNAY, TOTEM, 1970s, signed
By Sonia Delaunay
Located in AMSTERDAM, NL
Etching and aquatint on Arches wove paper Signed and numbered in pencil Publisher's dry stamp Published by the European Graphic Circle, Amsterdam Image: 76 × 56.5 cm (29.9 × 22.2 in....
Paper
Sonia Delaunay - Composition - Original Lithograph
By Sonia Delaunay
Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
Sonia Delaunay - Composition Original Lithograph 1969 Dimensions: 32 x 25 cm Revue XXe Siècle Cahiers d'art published under the direction of G. di San Lazzaro. Sonia Delaunay was known for her vivid use of color and her bold, abstract patterns, breaking down traditional distinctions between the fine and applied arts as an artist, designer and printmaker. Born Sarah Stern on November 14, 1885 in Gradizhsk, Ukraine, she was adopted in 1890 by her maternal uncle, Henri Terk, a lawyer in St. Petersburg, where she grew up, exposed to music and art, and learning several foreign languages. In 1903, she moved to Germany to study drawing with Ludwig Schmidt-Reutler (1863–1909) at the Karlsruhe academy of fine arts; Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951), composer-to-be, was among her classmates there. In 1905, she traveled to Paris where she attended art classes at the Académie de la Palette, learned printmaking from Rudolf Grossman (1889–1941), and met Amédée Ozenfant (1886–1966), André Dunoyer de Segonzac (1884–1974), and Jean-Louis Boussingault (1883–1943). Sonia spent much of her time at exhibitions and galleries in Paris, which showed works by Paul Cézanne, Vincent Van Gogh, Pierre Bonnard, and Edouard Vuillard, as well as Les Fauves, Henri Matisse and André Derain. She did, however, maintain contact with Germany, exhibiting at the Galerie Der Sturm, Berlin, in 1913, 1920 and 1921. During her first year in Paris, Sonia met the German collector and art-dealer, Wilhelm Uhde (1874–1947), whom she married on December 5, 1908, and whose Montparnasse gallery, the Galerie Notre-Dame des Champs, showed her first solo exhibition. Through Uhde, Sonia encountered many painters, including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Robert Delaunay (1885–1941). In 1910, Sonia divorced Uhde by mutual agreement, married Delaunay that same year, and gave birth to their son, Charles, in January 1911. Together Sonia and Robert Delaunay pursued the study of color, influenced by theories of Michel-Eugène Chevreul (1786–1889). Sonia’s interest in simultaneous contrast, as evidenced in her early collages, book bindings, small painted boxes, cushions, waistcoats and lampshades, led to one of her first large-scale works, the painting of the Bal Bullier (1912–1913), a popular Parisian dance-hall. Sonia’s first “simultaneous dresses,” a mix of squares and triangles of taffeta, tulle, flannelette, moiré, and corded silk, date from this period. Friendship with the poet Blaise Cendrars...
Lithograph
Juste Présent, Original Lithograph, Modern, 1961, Framed
By Sonia Delaunay
Located in OPOLE, PL
Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) - Juste Présent Lithograph from 1961. Dimensions of work: 38 x 28 cm Publisher: Lacourière et Frélaut, Paris. A Xerox copy of the justification page, s...
Lithograph
Juste Présent, Original Lithograph, Modern, 1961, Excellent
By Sonia Delaunay
Located in OPOLE, PL
Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) - Juste Présent Lithograph from 1961. Dimensions of work: 38 x 28 cm Publisher: Lacourière et Frélaut, Paris. A Xerox copy of the justification page, s...
Lithograph
This kaleidoscopic early-modern art style has long deserved another look. Now, the Guggenheim museum is doing just that.
With myriad pieces intended for the wardrobe or the home, the pioneering 20th-century artist translated her vision into everyday drama and style.
