Original Rug, After Sonia Delaunay
View Similar Items
Original Rug, After Sonia Delaunay
About the Item
- Creator:Sonia Delaunay (Artist)
- Dimensions:Width: 112.21 in (285 cm)Length: 69.69 in (177 cm)
- Style:Modern (Of the Period)
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1960s-1970s
- Condition:
- Seller Location:Paris, FR
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU106762329302
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.
- "Butterfly" Rug by Sonia Delaunay, circa 1980By Sonia DelaunayLocated in Paris, FRIn handmade tufted colored wool Signed with the monogram "SD" lower right n°34/200 and inscription "Pour J. Damase" Bibliography : Les Objets du désir, ...Category
Vintage 1980s French Art Deco Western European Rugs
MaterialsWool
- French Early Modern, Cubist, Art Deco "1930" Wool Carpet by Sonia DelaunayBy Artcurial, Sonia DelaunayLocated in New York, NYAn important French Mid-Century Modern thick pile carpet in wool known as "1930" in a Cubist Design by Sonia Delaunay. Documentation: Monogrammed SD at corner of carpet. There is a c...Category
Mid-20th Century French Art Deco Western European Rugs
MaterialsWool
$16,900 Sale Price30% Off - Cubistic Tapestry or Carpet in Wool and Silk, France, 1930'sBy Sonia DelaunayLocated in Amsterdam, NLArt Deco cubistic carpet / wall tapestry in wool and silk, France, 1930’s . Measures: (332 x 195 cm) This well preserved tapestry that can also be used as a carpet (no shoes allowed) comes from a meeting room from the head office of Philips Electronics in Eindhoven. It comes out of a meeting room and it is truly in an amazing condition. The silk has been very well preserved and the colours really stand out. The black colours work very well almost as a catalysator for the blue and red and together they create a great play between shapes and forms and different materials and colours. The well chosen symboles make this tapestry a pleasure for the eye. In real life much nicer than on the picture. We tried to give you a better understanding of its appearance by putting it in a few settings. Hopefully this helps. More pictures on request. And oh yes, the amazing black and white art work is by Noor Knip...Category
Vintage 1930s Western European Rugs
MaterialsWool, Silk
- Victor Vasarely, Hand Signed Original TapestryBy Victor VasarelyLocated in Geneve, CHVictor Vasarely (1906-1997). Panderlak, circa 1983 Measures: 120 x 72 cm Hand signed and numbered on the back, edition of 320. Victor Vasarely, whose original name was Gyözö ...Category
Vintage 1980s French Modern Tapestries
MaterialsWool
- Vintage European Kilim Flatwoven Rug Kelim Rug Handmade Tapestry Art Nouveau RugLocated in New York, NYVintage European Kilim flatwoven rug flatwoven Kelim rug handmade tapestry 5x6 4'9" x 6'3" 145cm x 191cm "This is a beautiful European kilim Ru...Category
Vintage 1970s Spanish Art Nouveau Western European Rugs
MaterialsWool
$3,400 Sale Price20% Off - Vintage European Kilim Flatwoven Rug Kelim Rug Handmade Tapestry Art Nouveau RugLocated in New York, NYVintage European Kilim Flatwoven Rug Art Nouveau Signed Tapestry 5'2" x 7'3" 158cm x 221cm "This is a beautiful Vintage European Rug tapestry. Thi...Category
Vintage 1970s European Art Nouveau Western European Rugs
MaterialsWool
$3,360 Sale Price / item20% Off