Background

Sonia Delaunay was born on November 14, 1885 in Hradyzk, Russian Empire (now Hradyzk, Ukraine). Her father was a foreman of a nail factory. Sonia was cared for her mother's brother, Henri Terk, and his wife, who later adopted Sonia.

Education

At the age of sixteen, Sonia attended a secondary school in St. Petersburg. Some time later, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe. Delaunay stayed in Germany until 1905, when she decided to move on to Paris. When she arrived in Paris, she enrolled at the Académie de La Palette in Montparnasse.

Career

Since 1914 to 1920, Sonia and her husband, Robert Delaunay, stayed in Spain and Portugal, where the couple got acquainted with local painters.

During the 1920s, Delaunay designed textiles and dresses, and her use of abstract colour harmonies had a strong influence on international fashion. Sonia used to make clothes for private clients and friends, and in 1923 created fifty fabric designs, using geometrical shapes and bold colours, commissioned by a manufacturer from Lyon. Soon after, she started her own business and simultané became her registered trademark. In 1924 Delaunay opened a fashion studio together with Jacques Heim. Her customers included Nancy Cunard, Gloria Swanson, Lucienne Bogaert and Gabrielle Dorziat.

Sonia also designed costumes for two films: Le Vertige directed by Marcel L'Herbier and Le p'tit Parigot, directed by René Le Somptier, and designed some furniture for the set of the 1929 film Parce que je t'aime (Because I love you). During this period, she also designed haute couture textiles for Robert Perrier, while participating actively in his artistic salon, R-26.

The Great Depression caused a decline in business. After closing her business, Sonia Delaunay returned to painting, but she still designed for Jacques Heim, Metz & Co, Perrier and private clients.

By the end of 1934 Sonia was working on designs for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne, for which she and Robert worked together on decorating two pavilions: the Pavillon des Chemins de Fer and the Palais de l'Air.

Sonia also decorated a Matra 530 for Matra company.

Achievements

• Sonia Delaunay was one of the founders of the Orphism art movement.
  
  In 1964 she became the only woman to have an exhibition at the Louvre Museum in her own lifetime.
  
  In 1975 Sonia was named an officer of the French Legion of Honor.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Alphabet 1972
  • Sonia Delaunay Patterns and Designs in Full Color 1989

• painting

  • Composition 22

  • Fashion Illustration

  • Composition 27

  • Abstract Swirl

  • Design

  • Compositions Colors Ideas 14

  • Composition 12

  • The Ball

  • Composition 31

  • Portrait of Philomene

  • Composition 18

  • Composition 21

  • Composition 7

  • Icarus

  • Rhythm Colour

  • Squares

  • Fashion Illustration

  • Dubonnet

  • Flamenco singer

  • Composition 35

  • Philomene

  • Color Rhythms

  • Design in the style of Mondrian, possibly for a rug, from "Compositions, Colours, Ideas"

  • Flamenco singer

  • Rythme

  • Composition

  • Portuguese Market

  • Composition 10

  • Fashion Illustration

  • Composition 16

  • Fashion Illustration

  • Vogue Cover

  • Compositions, Couleurs, Idees

  • Simultaneous Colors

  • Fabric Pattern

  • Composition 32

  • Сouleurs idees

  • Сouleurs idees

  • Electric prisms

  • Untitled gouache (Illustration for Tristan Tzara's "Le fruit permis")

  • Fabric Pattern

  • Composition Red, Blue, Black, White

  • Three Women dressed simultaneously

  • Composition 19

  • Fashion Illustration

  • Flamenco dancer

  • Word poetry, poetry of colors

  • Composition 37

  • Composition 34

  • Abstract Composition with Semicircles

  • Composition 11

  • Revolution. Affiche

  • Composition 24

  • Rythme

  • Distant Journeys

  • Composition with Discs

  • Composition

  • Summer Project

  • Color Rhythm

  • Sleeping girl

  • Rhythm Colour

  • Tissu Project

  • Fashion Illustration

  • Composition for XXe Siecle

  • Prose of the Trans-Siberian and of Little Jehanne of France

  • Composition

  • Composition with green and blue

  • Swimsuits

  • Abstract Composition

  • Fashion Illustration

  • Orfizme

  • Untitled gouache (Illustration for Tristan Tzara's "Le fruit permis")

  • Montjoie

  • Untitled

  • Composition 13

  • Rythme colore

  • Terk

  • Composition 39

  • Composition 28

  • Rhythm Colour

  • Electric prisms

  • Her Paintings, Her Objects

  • Zenith

  • Composition 29

  • Modernism

  • Portugese Still Life

  • Composition 30

  • Abstract Composition with triangles and Semicircles

  • Market at Minho

  • Сouleurs idees

Connections

Sonia married Wilhelm Uhde, a German collector and art-dealer, on December 5, 1908. Two years later, in 1910, the couple divorced and Sonia married Robert Delaunay the same year. In January 1911, Sonya and Robert, gave birth to their son, Charles.

child:

Charles Delaunay

Uncle:

Henri Terk

First husband:

Wilhelm Uhde

Second husband:

Robert Delaunay

References

• Sonia Delaunay
  2015
• Sonia Delaunay: Art, Design and Fashion
  2017
• Sonia Delaunay: A Life of Color
  2017
• Madame Sonia Delaunay: A Pop-Up Book
  2015