The Colorful Life of Sonia Delaunay
by Phyllis Tuchman
APRIL 12, 2012 TAGS:
Sonia Delaunay wasn’t like other girlfriends, companions, and wives of the painters and sculptors who pioneered early Modernism. Delaunay — or Delaunay-Terk, as some recent publications refer to her to distinguish her from her husband — didn’t end up as a mere footnote, a minor distraction. Moreover, the French-Ukrainian colorist lived long enough to enjoy the fame she merited. When she died more than 30 years ago at the age of 94, a retrospective of her paintings, works on paper, textile designs, ballet costumes and the like was touring the United States.
For decades, Sonia Delaunay was best known as the wife of Robert Delaunay. Though the couple, who married in 1910, shared a similar aesthetic, in the years before the rise of feminism, his work was discussed in art history tomes, not hers. His canvases, not hers, were featured in survey exhibitions, whether the show focused on the period before World War I or the first 70 years of the 20th century.
Things are different these days. Her swirling arcs of exuberant yellow, orange, blue and green in geometric abstractions from 1912 and 1913 were included in the French section of the fascinating exhibition, Futurism, at the Tate Modern in 2009. And her art stood out in elles@centrepompidou, a ground-breaking installation devoted to women in the French museum’s collection from 2010.
Born on Nov. 14, 1885 in Gradizhsk, a village in the Ukraine, Sonia Stern was the youngest of three children. When she was 5, the Jewish girl was sent to live in St. Petersburg with her mother’s wealthy brother, Henry Terk. A lawyer with a townhouse, liveried servants, sophisticated friends and a collection of Barbizon paintings, Terk raised and adopted his niece. Young Sonia spoke French, German and English — each of her three governesses taught her a different language — and she spent summers through 1907 in Finland. When she was 14, the German Impressionist Max Lieberman, a family friend, gave her paints and brushes. At school, she studied drawing.
Years later, she mentioned being influenced by “colors from my childhood from the Ukraine. Memories of peasant weddings in my country in which the red and green dresses decorated with many ribbons billowed in dance. Memories of an album of folk costumes brought from Sweden by my uncle.”
After spending two years at the university in Karlsruhe, the 20-year-old went to Paris to become an artist. With four Russian friends, she lived in the Latin Quarter and studied at the Academie de la Palette. That October, she was smitten by the Fauves’ first exhibition, the one that caused an uproar. Soon, she was painting figures — clothed and nude — in striking combinations of red and yellow, blue and green. A pair of these canvases appeared in a landmark survey of Fauvism held in Paris 10 years ago.
Charming, talented and multilingual, Delaunay-Terk was championed by the German-born art dealer and critic, Wilhelm Uhde, who arrived in Paris in 1904. He gave the promising painter her first solo show in 1908 (she would not hold another until 1953, when she was 68). The two wed in 1908, though Uhde, who is featured in the current French film, Seraphine, was homosexual. This marriage of convenience, art historians commonly assume, convinced Delaunay’s mother to let her daughter remain in Paris.
Through Uhde, Delaunay-Terk met, among others, Picasso, Braque, and Vlaminck. During the summer of 1909, the couple were neighbors of Robert Delaunay, who was also born in 1885 and raised by his aunt and uncle. “He was like a whirlwind,” Delaunay-Terk remembered. “His eagerness for life, his aggressiveness, filled me with delight.”
She and Uhde divorced, and the painters married in 1910. The couple’s son, Charles, was born soon afterwards. With differently sized and colored scraps of material, Delaunay-Terk made a baby blanket in the style of Russian folk art. Her friends likened it to Cubism. The artist said it was “a spontaneous creation, and nothing more.”
Back then, Robert Delaunay was painting his most famous pictures, including views from a window of the Eiffel Tower surrounded by clouds. As he progressed, he replaced his gray palette with patches of color dominated by sky blues and sunshine yellows.” Speaking for both of them, Delaunay-Terk said, “In the sky we had rediscovered the moving principle of any work of art: the light, and the motion of color.”
For several years, the couple painted animated abstractions that suggested Cubism crossed with Futurism, a movement that this year celebrates its centenary. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire called it Orphism. The Delaunays used the title, Simultaneous Contrasts. About her Bal Bullier, a work inspired by a dance hall, Delaunay-Terk noted, “It was a tradition to represent a dancer frozen in a chosen position, like a snapshot. I broke away from this tradition by superimposing postures, blending light and motion and scrambling the planes.”
When war was declared in 1914, the Delaunays were in Spain for their son’s health and unable to return to Paris. In Portugal, where they went to live, Delaunay-Terk painted some wonderful still lifes in which balls of color and the shapes of fruits are difficult to tell apart. The Ballets Russe impresario Serge Diaghilev, who was also stranded abroad, invited his new friends to design the costumes and set for his revival of Cleopatre. With her captivating dress for the Egyptian queen, Delaunay-Terk transposed her notions regarding art and movement into real time and space. And she repeated her success with costumes for a Spanish production of Aida, Leonide Massine’s unrealized ballet, Les Quatres Saisons, other ballets and a few films.
In the wake of the Russian Revolution, Delaunay-Terk lost her family allowance. To earn a living, she designed colorful fabrics, tapestries and carpets. Besides collaborating memorably with couturiers Coco Chanel, Jeanne Lanvin and Jacques Heim, she made clothing for the wives of architects Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Erich Mendelsohn. She even decorated a Citroen B12.
When the Great Depression curtailed her commercial career, she returned to painting. As a team, the Delaunays created several impressive wall-sized murals for the Paris World’s Fair of 1937. However, peace and serenity continued to elude the couple. When Hitler invaded Paris, they fled south to Montpellier. There, Delaunay, stricken with cancer, died in 1941.
On her own for 38 more years, Delaunay-Terk made art, reentered the field of decorative arts and oversaw the legacy of her husband. Though she held numerous solo shows and was awarded a variety of honors, she remained modest and humble. Shortly before she died in 1979, she said, “I have led three lives: one for Robert, one for my son and grandsons, a shorter one for myself. I don’t regret not having given myself more attention. I really did not have the time.”
(Sonia Delaunay in a dress she designed)
(Sonia and her Citroen)
.jpg)
For decades, Sonia Delaunay was best known as the wife of Robert Delaunay. Though the couple, who married in 1910, shared a similar aesthetic, in the years before the rise of feminism, his work was discussed in art history tomes, not hers. His canvases, not hers, were featured in survey exhibitions, whether the show focused on the period before World War I or the first 70 years of the 20th century. Things are different these days. Her swirling arcs of exuberant yellow, orange, blue and green in geometric abstractions from 1912 and 1913 were included in the French section of the fascinating exhibition, Futurism, at the Tate Modern in 2009. And her art stood out in elles@centrepompidou, a ground-breaking installation devoted to women in the French museum’s collection from 2010.
Born on Nov. 14, 1885 in Gradizhsk, a village in the Ukraine, Sonia Stern was the youngest of three children. When she was 5, the Jewish girl was sent to live in St. Petersburg with her mother’s wealthy brother, Henry Terk. A lawyer with a townhouse, liveried servants, sophisticated friends and a collection of Barbizon paintings, Terk raised and adopted his niece. Young Sonia spoke French, German and English — each of her three governesses taught her a different language — and she spent summers through 1907 in Finland. When she was 14, the German Impressionist Max Lieberman, a family friend, gave her paints and brushes. At school, she studied drawing.
Years later, she mentioned being influenced by “colors from my childhood from the Ukraine. Memories of peasant weddings in my country in which the red and green dresses decorated with many ribbons billowed in dance. Memories of an album of folk costumes brought from Sweden by my uncle.”
After spending two years at the university in Karlsruhe, the 20-year-old went to Paris to become an artist. With four Russian friends, she lived in the Latin Quarter and studied at the Academie de la Palette. That October, she was smitten by the Fauves’ first exhibition, the one that caused an uproar. Soon, she was painting figures — clothed and nude — in striking combinations of red and yellow, blue and green. A pair of these canvases appeared in a landmark survey of Fauvism held in Paris 10 years ago.Charming, talented and multilingual, Delaunay-Terk was championed by the German-born art dealer and critic, Wilhelm Uhde, who arrived in Paris in 1904. He gave the promising painter her first solo show in 1908 (she would not hold another until 1953, when she was 68). The two wed in 1908, though Uhde, who is featured in the current French film, Seraphine, was homosexual. This marriage of convenience, art historians commonly assume, convinced Delaunay’s mother to let her daughter remain in Paris.
Through Uhde, Delaunay-Terk met, among others, Picasso, Braque, and Vlaminck. During the summer of 1909, the couple were neighbors of Robert Delaunay, who was also born in 1885 and raised by his aunt and uncle. “He was like a whirlwind,” Delaunay-Terk remembered. “His eagerness for life, his aggressiveness, filled me with delight.”
She and Uhde divorced, and the painters married in 1910. The couple’s son, Charles, was born soon afterwards. With differently sized and colored scraps of material, Delaunay-Terk made a baby blanket in the style of Russian folk art. Her friends likened it to Cubism. The artist said it was “a spontaneous creation, and nothing more.”
Back then, Robert Delaunay was painting his most famous pictures, including views from a window of the Eiffel Tower surrounded by clouds. As he progressed, he replaced his gray palette with patches of color dominated by sky blues and sunshine yellows.” Speaking for both of them, Delaunay-Terk said, “In the sky we had rediscovered the moving principle of any work of art: the light, and the motion of color.”For several years, the couple painted animated abstractions that suggested Cubism crossed with Futurism, a movement that this year celebrates its centenary. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire called it Orphism. The Delaunays used the title, Simultaneous Contrasts. About her Bal Bullier, a work inspired by a dance hall, Delaunay-Terk noted, “It was a tradition to represent a dancer frozen in a chosen position, like a snapshot. I broke away from this tradition by superimposing postures, blending light and motion and scrambling the planes.”
When war was declared in 1914, the Delaunays were in Spain for their son’s health and unable to return to Paris. In Portugal, where they went to live, Delaunay-Terk painted some wonderful still lifes in which balls of color and the shapes of fruits are difficult to tell apart. The Ballets Russe impresario Serge Diaghilev, who was also stranded abroad, invited his new friends to design the costumes and set for his revival of Cleopatre. With her captivating dress for the Egyptian queen, Delaunay-Terk transposed her notions regarding art and movement into real time and space. And she repeated her success with costumes for a Spanish production of Aida, Leonide Massine’s unrealized ballet, Les Quatres Saisons, other ballets and a few films.
In the wake of the Russian Revolution, Delaunay-Terk lost her family allowance. To earn a living, she designed colorful fabrics, tapestries and carpets. Besides collaborating memorably with couturiers Coco Chanel, Jeanne Lanvin and Jacques Heim, she made clothing for the wives of architects Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Erich Mendelsohn. She even decorated a Citroen B12.When the Great Depression curtailed her commercial career, she returned to painting. As a team, the Delaunays created several impressive wall-sized murals for the Paris World’s Fair of 1937. However, peace and serenity continued to elude the couple. When Hitler invaded Paris, they fled south to Montpellier. There, Delaunay, stricken with cancer, died in 1941.
On her own for 38 more years, Delaunay-Terk made art, reentered the field of decorative arts and oversaw the legacy of her husband. Though she held numerous solo shows and was awarded a variety of honors, she remained modest and humble. Shortly before she died in 1979, she said, “I have led three lives: one for Robert, one for my son and grandsons, a shorter one for myself. I don’t regret not having given myself more attention. I really did not have the time.”
(Sonia Delaunay in a dress she designed)
(Sonia and her Citroen)
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