Sonia Delaunay

This volume presents sketches and textile designs by the great Russian French modernist artist Sonia Delaunay alongside her paintings and interior and fashion designs. It demonstrates how she transferred her color philosophy of “Simultanism,” which she developed in her painting, to the mediums and surfaces of modern life. Maison Sonia Delaunay also explores the international textile companies with whom she collaborated, and shows how she explored the relationship between art and industry, and the ways in which she used her many abilities to design a visionary modern life. The book includes the first scholarly essays on Delaunay's collaborations with silk industrialist Robert Perrier and couturier Jacques Heim, who were among her most important collaborators.
Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979) migrated to Paris in 1906 and became a key figure in the city’s avant-garde scene. During these early years, her paintings underwent a formal shift influenced by the vivid colors of Fauvism. She soon met her husband, fellow artist Robert Delaunay, and the couple pioneered a fusion of Cubism and Neo-Impressionism that they termed Simultanism—abstract painting that uses color in a manner comparable to the use of sound and rhythm in music. In 1964, Delaunay became the first living woman artist to have a retrospective at the Louvre.

Sonia Delaunay was a true pioneer of modernist abstraction; breaking with the figurative vocabulary that subordinated color to subject matter, she placed dynamic color interaction at the core of her vision, whether expressed through painting, book illustration or costume and textile design. Drawing inspiration from both traditional Russian crafts and the modern frenetic metropolis, Delaunay’s work reflects the drastic changes ushered in by industrialization. Through her polyvalent practice, Delaunay helped construct the new modern woman that she herself embodied: equal parts avant-gardist, creative entrepreneur and businesswoman.
This richly illustrated catalog showcases the range of Delaunay’s work as it unfolded over 60 years, from abstract paintings and works on paper to textile design, garments, fashion photography, books and carpets—even a brightly colored sports car.
Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979) migrated to Paris in 1906 and became a key figure in the city’s avant-garde scene. During these early years, her paintings underwent a formal shift influenced by the vivid colors of Fauvism. She soon met her husband, fellow artist Robert Delaunay, and the couple pioneered a fusion of Cubism and Neo-Impressionism that they termed Simultanism, which denotes abstract painting that uses color in a manner comparable to the use of sound and rhythm in music. In 1964, Delaunay became the first living woman artist to have a retrospective at the Louvre.

Sonia Delaunay: Art, Design, Fashion provides a unified vision of the modernist pioneer’s work in painting, theatrical sets, advertising, interiors, fashion and textiles. Published for a landmark exhibition at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, and drawing on new scholarship that emphasizes the multidisciplinary character of her art, it reproduces pieces loaned from public institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Musée de la Mode de Paris and the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, as well as from international private collections.

Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979) was raised in St. Petersburg, in Russia. After a brief period of study in Germany, she moved to Paris in 1905, and began painting in the Fauve style of Matisse and Derain. In 1909 she met Robert Delaunay, and together they devised a brighter version of Cubism that their friend the poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire termed Orphism. Also among their friends was the poet Blaise Cendrars; one of Delaunay’s best-known works is her 1913 accordion-fold artist’s book collaboration with Cendrars, Prose of the Trans-Siberian Railway. In addition to her prolific 75-year painting career, she created brilliant textiles and fashion works for nearly three decades.