Sonia Terk Delaunay

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” (De, 2009). Sonia Terk Delaunay was born in Russia in 1885 and died in 1974. Sonia was born poor but in 1890 she was adopted by Henri Terk, a rich uncle who was a lawyer in St. Petersburg. She grew up, exposed to music and art, and learning several foreign languages and in 1903 she moved to Germany to study drawing. Later in 1905 her uncle sent her to Paris to study art at the Académie de la Palette. In Paris, Sonia met her first husband, Wilhelm Uhde who was a German collector and art dealer. Uhde showed her first solo exhibition in 1908 but after Sonia divorced Uhde and married Robert Delaunay, she did not have her next painting show until 1953.

Sonia Delaunay 

Many people associate Sonia with her husband Robert Delaunay, together they accomplished a lot but she also made herself known by her own individual work.  Together, her and her husband created a theory of color that was called simultaneous, unfortunately, her husband got most of the credit for it.  Although Robert was considered the genius of the duo, Sonia did not mind. “While Robert kept his purity and the privileges to paint all day, Sonia supported him and their son, applied their ideas about color to design, and made simultaneous fabric, clothing, furniture, environment, and even cars” (Guerilla Girls, 60)

Sonia’s painting dealt with the problem of light, color and movement. Sonia made a painting in 1913 named 'Bal Bullier': this painting changed the image of rhythmic dance moves into circling forms, which were mixed in the center of the painting with pure colors. “The transfer of this artistic aim to every-day life, from fashion design, interior decoration to book design made the artist one of the most important members of the Art-Déco movement” (art directory). When World War I was declared in 1914, Sonia Delaunay, and her husband traveled to Madrid. During this, Sonia painted still-lifes and market scenes. Once she was settled in, she started to engage in interior decoration and had a big interest in designing clothes and costumes. In 1918, Serge Diaghilev authorized her to do the costumes for a Ballets Russes production of Cléopatre, which opened in London. And then she designed costumes for a production of the opera Aida at the Liceo in Barcelona. Along with that, she was also invited to decorate a new nightclub, the Petit Casino. She officially gave up painting between 1918 and 1935 after she no longer had  financial support because of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917.

“In 1964 Delaunay became the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre, thanks to her donation of 117 works by herself and Robert”(De,2009). One of the first important exhibitions of Delaunay’s work, which took place in Paris in 1965 after her meeting Damase, was called ‘L’Expo 1925,’ at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, where an entire room was devoted to her fabric designs and dresses. In 1967, there was a full-scale retrospective of her work, consisting of almost two hundred pieces, at the Musée National d’Art Moderne.

By the time Sonia Delaunay died at home in Paris on December 5, 1979, she had received many honors. Some of those honors consisted of the Légion d’honneur and she painted the poster for the International Women’s Year of UNESCO. She also took part in the Paris-Moscow Exhibition at the Centre Pompidou (1979). She was honored so much as an artist that President Georges Pompidou, on an official visit to the United States, brought one of Sonia Delaunay’s paintings as a gift from the French government.

Matra M530A painted by Sonia Delaunay

Sonia Delaunay, Rythme, 1938, oil on canvas, 182 x 149 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris

Sonia's designs for clothes and Citroen 812, 1925

Sonia Delaunay, Prismes électriques, 1913-1914. Photo Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA. Courtesy of the Musée d’Art Moderne.

Work Cited

The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York: Penguin, 1998. Print.

De, Julio Maryann. "Sonia Delaunay." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 1 March 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on April 4, 2015

"Sonia Delaunay-Terk Biography - Infos - Art Market." Sonia Delaunay-Terk Biography - Infos - Art Market. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2015.