On Sonia Delaunay: Les couleurs de l’abstraction

8/10/2019 On Sonia Delaunay: Les couleurs de labstraction

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Sonia Delaunay

Les couleurs de labstraction

Muse d'art moderne (Paris XVIe)

October 17, 2014 - February 22, 2015

Published at Hyperallergiic.com asA Major Exhibition Considers the Colorful Legacy of Sonia Delaunay

http://hyperallergic.com/171415/a-major-exhibition-considers-the-colorful-legacy-of-

sonia-delaunay/

In our period of the rampant merging of art and fashion, it is refreshing to revisit where

this hybridization more or less began in modernism with the first retrospective since 1967

of Sonia Terk Delaunay (born Sophie Stern or Illinichtna Sara Stern). It is generally arichly colorful exhibition of applied poetic abstraction, with four hundred rather

stylistically consistent works that stretch from the Belle poque to the 1970s. It includes

her bold paintings and monumental murals, gouaches, prints, posters, clothing, bindings,

artists books, household and fashion items, textiles and three reconstructions of

immersive environments.

The majority her work is based in the theory of simultanisme, a proclaiming of the

constructive and dynamic power of color. The show illustrates the fertile uniqueness of

Sonia Delaunay by stressing her sustained dialogue with simultanismeeven as she takes

on the connection of art and technology by shuffling back and forth between various art

forms. Her consistency of formal research, based in the synthetic, makes this show

especially pertinent to our time.

Starting with her Fauvist color inspired works (that use various degrees of abstraction)

Ms. Delaunay appears to be both an inventive and prolific creator, taking inspiration fromthe dynamism of modern life. She is a major precursor of a color abstraction that takes

textiles and fashion seriously. As such, I discovered her here clearly as a creator of a

house of fashion that went so far as to resurface a sports car so as to match a dress. I

noticed, in particular, a superb dress she made for Nancy Cunard that was adorned with

rhythmic, joyful colors.


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Studio REP Modles devant voiture simultane (1925) Pracusa 2013057 BNF Robert mallet-Stevens Adagp,

Paris 2014 Jacques Heim DR

Coat for Gloria Swanson (c. 1924) Broderie de laine Collection particulire Pracusa 2013057


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The show unravels chronologically, walking me step-by-step through the advancement of

the artist, establishing her specific place within the European avant-garde (her role as a

pioneer in color-based abstraction) by highlighting the importance of her work to the

applied arts.

Born 1885 in now war-torn Odessa (Ukraine) of a foreman father and a mother who

could barely read, Ms. Delaunay discovered art through her maternal uncle Henri Terk, a

wealthy member of the Jewish bourgeoisie in St. Petersburg. In 1904, she attended the

Fine Arts Academy in Karlsruhe, Germany before coming to Paris in 1906, where she

discovered Paul Gauguin and the Fauves: dedicating herself to the beauty of pure tones

and solid colors. In 1907, Ms. Delaunay met Wilhelm Uhde, an art dealer, critic and early

collector of modernist painting by Picasso and Matisse. Their friendly marriage allowsher to acquire French nationality.

After finding her authentic husband, Robert Delaunay (who she married in 1910 and who

died in 1941), they jointly proclaimed (in 1921) the coming of a new art of Orphism

based on the constructive and dynamic power of color and the simultaneous fusing of

motion-with-color.

In 1913 the Delaunays showed their works in the Salon des Indpendants and the Herbst

Salon, the latter being the first Orphist Salon, which also hosted works by Picabia,

Metzinger, Gleizes, Lger, and Futurist painters. Unlike others associated with Orphism,

the Delaunays would return to this style (what they thought of as a universal language)

throughout their lives, creating works that featured the joyous dance of rhythmic color.

Ms. Delaunays work has a tendency towards non-representation that relies heavily on

the fresh sensuality of colors in smooth transitions between forms (a concept derived

from Neo-Impressionist color theory).


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"Couverture de Berceau" (1911) MNAM Pracusa 2013057


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Prismes lectriques (1913-1914) Pracusa 2013057 Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, Gift of

Mr. Theodore Racoosin


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Couverture du catalogue de l'exposition de Stockholm, Autoportrait (1916) Pracusa 2013057 BNF

Surprised by the First World War while in Spain, the Delaunays decided to extend their

stay and settle in Vigo where Sonia, a keen observer of flamenco music and dance,

executed a series of large format paintingswhile also taking on theater costume and

fashion projects.

The following decade marked the development of a period of semi-abstraction for Ms.

Delaunay, as evidenced by Propeller design for the Palace of the Air, International

Exhibition of Arts and Technology in Modern Life, Paris (1937), first presented at the

Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (International

Exhibition of Arts and Technology in Modern Life) in 1937.


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Propeller design for the Palace of the Air, International Exhibition of Arts and Technology in Modern Life, Paris

(1937) Tempera on canvas Pracusa 2013057 Skissernas Museum, Lund, Sweden/Emma Krantz

In the post-war period, Ms. Delaunay undergoes a profound renewal that culminates in

the late 1960s, often calling on the free rhythm heard in jazz.

Composition pour jazz, 2e srie, No F 344", Paris (1952) Pracusa 2013057 Courtesy Galerie Zlotowski, Paris


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Rythme Couleur (Color Rhythm) (1964) Pracusa 2013057 Muse d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris / Roger-

Viollet

In our time where many contemporary power artists have disgustingly worked for luxurybrands, a move that has, in effect, revealed the high-end art market itself as a luxury

goods business, Sonia Delaunays show was particularly revealing of the importance of

scale. The connection between art and fashion, in-and-of-itself, is not very problematic

(nor very major). It is the exploitation of that connection, on the global corporate scale,

that chafes.

Joseph Nechvatal

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On Sonia Delaunay: Les couleurs de l’abstraction