Quarter
View Similar Items
Sonia DelaunayQuarter1968
1968
About the Item
- Creator:Sonia Delaunay (1885 - 1979, French)
- Creation Year:1968
- Dimensions:Height: 35.44 in (90 cm)Width: 27.56 in (70 cm)
- Period:
- Framing:Framing Options Available
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Winterswijk, NL
- Reference Number:Seller: KC019551stDibs: LU1124210815492
Sonia Delaunay
Pioneering 20th-century abstract artist Sonia Delaunay was known for ignoring the distinction between fine art and applied design. Her body of work encompassed not only paintings and prints but also book illustrations, women’s and men’s fashions, costumes for theater and dance, film sets, wallpaper, furniture and interior decor. More than an expression of her prolific talent, this varied output was her way of erasing the boundary between life and art.
Born Sara Elievna Stern in 1885 to a working-class Jewish family in Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire), she was adopted as a child by a wealthy maternal uncle in St. Petersburg, who saw to her well-rounded education. There, she picked up the nickname Sonia.
At the age of 18, she left Russia for Germany to study painting, and in 1905, she landed in Paris, where she enrolled in art school. She soon dropped out but continued creating art, producing canvases strongly influenced by Fauvism. Following a brief marriage to gallery owner Wilhelm Uhde, she married fellow artist Robert Delaunay (1885–1941) in 1910. After the birth of her son, Charles, in 1911, she crafted a patchwork crib cover that she considered her first truly abstract piece.
No matter the medium, Delaunay’s passion was color. She and her husband were the main exponents of Orphism, a branch of Cubism defined by abstract compositions and bright shades. They saw their creations as experiments in Simultanéisme, or Simultanism, a color theory based on the work of scientist Michel Eugène Chevreul (1786–1889), who studied the ways in which a given hue can look different depending on the ones around it.
The Delaunays noted that certain pairings seemed to generate a vibration in the eye of the beholder. They felt that this movement captured the dynamism of modern urban life. The couple generally expressed the ideas underpinning Simultanism in their work with flat, overlapping panes of color. In fact, Sonia’s cradle cover melded their tenets with the traditions of Russian-peasant patchwork (also a big Constructivist inspiration).
Seeking to integrate Simultanism into all aspects of life, she designed other abstractly patterned furnishings for their home, which had become a gathering place for the avant-garde, and she worked the designs into their clothes, too, which she and Robert would wear throughout the city and to dance halls — behavior that today would likely be described as performance. In addition to performance, Sonia’s work presaged many other avant-garde movements, such as kinetic art and Op art.
After the upheavals of World War I and the 1917 Russian Revolution, Delaunay retooled herself and opened a business. Keeping her devotion to color juxtaposition front and center, she launched a fabric and fashion atelier where she created textiles, wearable pieces, interior decor and furniture, sometimes collaborating with cabinetmaker Adolphe Chanaux.
Clients who may have found an abstract painting intimidating or inaccessible could enjoy the bright pattern on a cloche-and-scarf set Delaunay created or the striped handbag she designed. In this way, she brought her art into their everyday lives. Her colorful abstract design on a textile or rug could very well have been applied to one of her canvases and hung on a wall or vice versa.
While many women artists of the period were herded away from the fine arts and toward crafts (think Anni Albers), Delaunay was able to do it all. And what’s also so appealing about her oeuvre, to contemporary eyes, is the sense that Delaunay pursued everything — be it painting or fashion or costuming or furniture or graphic design — with equal vigor, without making distinctions between mediums.
Find Sonia Delaunay art for sale on 1stDibs.
- Joan Miró - "Original Lithography X" - color lithography - mourlot 866By Joan MiróLocated in Winterswijk, NLJoan Miró - "Original Lithography X". Lithograph in colors from Litografo (Volume I) Spanish edition from 1972. Catalogue of works: Mourlot 866. Slight book fold in the centre of the paper. Miró's development of a new pictorial language led to a consistent restriction to the primary colours black, green, yellow, blue and red, which he implemented in the series of paintings "Constellations" (1940/41) with lines, spots and areas of colour. Like Pablo Picasso and Franz Marc, Miró also worked with graphics and primarily produced etchings and lithographs. Produced in large editions, the artist believed that everyone should be able to afford a print by Miró...Category
20th Century Surrealist Prints and Multiples
MaterialsLithograph
- Brig DianaLocated in Winterswijk, NLColor lithograph In great conditionCategory
Mid-20th Century Prints and Multiples
MaterialsLithograph, Color
- Ina Abuschenko-Matwejewa - "Berlin Buttons" - limited edition fine art printsLocated in Winterswijk, NLIna Abuschenko-Matwejewa - "Berlin Buttons". Berlin Buttons series, 6 pieces, price per artwork: Based on the video of the same name produced by Ina Abuschenko-Matwejewa. The occasi...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Prints and Multiples
MaterialsPaper
- Christo - "The Gates - New York Central Park" - color offset on heavy paperBy ChristoLocated in Winterswijk, NLChristo (Christo Wladimirow Jawaschew, born 1935 in Bulgaria, died 2020 in New York) and Jeanne-Claude (Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat, born 1935 in Casablanca, died 2009 in New York) cre...Category
20th Century Realist Prints and Multiples
MaterialsOffset
- CHEYT-MC-4By Victor VasarelyLocated in Winterswijk, NLColor offset after the original from 1971 In great condition FramedCategory
Late 19th Century Prints and Multiples
MaterialsOffset, Color
- I miss my rainy days - 3D designBy El BochoLocated in Winterswijk, NLHand-finished, unique 3D constructed screen print on thick, fine art paper 2020 Hand signed and numbered, verso Edition: 50 In great condition El Bocho's work can be found on the str...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Prints and Multiples
MaterialsColor
- "Erotic Mind III" 2018 Utopian Sculptures Serial Prints by Fernando Crespo #100By Fernando CrespoLocated in Coimbra, PTF. Crespo author of a world-famous giant sculpture Pope Francis Heart. Makes a first edition of his private and utopian projects. Fernando Crespo is a r...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsInkjet
- "Erotic Mind I" 2018 Utopian Sculptures Serial Prints by Fernando Crespo #100By Fernando CrespoLocated in Coimbra, PTF. Crespo author of a world-famous giant sculpture Pope Francis Heart. Makes a first edition of his private and utopian projects. Fernando Crespo is a recognized artist in Portugal. ...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsInkjet
- "Erotic Mind II" 2018 Utopian Sculptures Serial Prints by Fernando Crespo #100By Fernando CrespoLocated in Coimbra, PTF. Crespo author of a world-famous giant sculpture Pope Francis Heart. Makes a first edition of his private and utopian projects. Fernando Crespo is a recognized artist in Portugal. ...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsInkjet
- "Erotic Mind II" 2018 Utopian Sculptures Serial Prints by Fernando Crespo #100By Fernando CrespoLocated in Coimbra, PTF. Crespo author of a world-famous giant sculpture Pope Francis Heart. Makes a first edition of his private and utopian projects. Fernando Crespo is a recognized artist in Portugal. ...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsInkjet
- "Fashion Victims" 2018 Utopian Sculptures Serial Prints by Fernando Crespo#100By Fernando CrespoLocated in Coimbra, PTF. Crespo author of a world-famous giant sculpture Pope Francis Heart. Makes a first edition of his private and utopian projects. Fernando Crespo is a r...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsInkjet
- "Suspended Lives" 2018 Utopian Sculptures Serial Prints by Fernando Crespo #100By Fernando CrespoLocated in Coimbra, PTF. Crespo author of a world-famous giant sculpture Pope Francis Heart. Makes a first edition of his private and utopian projects. Fernando Crespo is a recognized artist in Portugal. ...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsInkjet