How a girl from Ukraine sewed a patchwork quilt and became the first artist to hold a solo exhibition at the Louvre during her lifetime.
Sonya Stern was born in Gradizsk near Odessa. When the girl was five, her mother sent her to St. Petersburg to be raised by her brother, a wealthy lawyer, Genrikh Terk. The girl received a good education and traveled a lot. When they saw that she had talent for drawing, they sent her to the German Art Academy of Karlsruhe, and at 20, after the book “Manet and His Circle,” she left for Paris herself.
In Paris, Sonia visited the academy, art galleries and studios, and socialized with the Fauvists. In the last century, it was indecent for a young girl to live abroad alone for a long time, so her aunt asked Sonia to return home. In order not to leave Montmartre, the 23-year-old artist married the German gallery owner Wilhelm Uhde (it is believed that the marriage was fictitious). And two years later, she married the artist Robert Delaunay, with whom she lived until his death.
Robert and Sonia work in Cubism, follow Picasso’s ideas and search for their own style. In 1911, their son Charles is born, for whom Sonia decides to sew a patchwork quilt. Previously, such quilts were used by poor people who did not have whole pieces of fabric.
But Sonia was inspired to make patchwork not by poverty, but most likely by childhood memories from Gradizhsk. The life of working families.
When she put together brightly colored silk patches, the couple saw that the pattern resembled Cubism, only bright, not the gray-brown it was at the time. Robert was so inspired by his son’s blanket that he began to paint pictures that resembled it. The artist, who had studied color, knew that combining two colors creates depth, energy, and internal dynamics. The Delaunays experimented and began to use simultaneous (spontaneous) contrasts.
Sonia leaves painting for the applied sphere and in 1913 sews the first simultaneous dress for the Ball of Bullier. The Ball of Bullier is a party where the French bohemia gathers. Sonia’s dress is discussed, and on the wave of success she begins to make simultaneous waistcoats, hats, bags, folders for papers and even lampshades.
Now this first simultaneous dress is kept in a private collection.
During World War I, Sonia and Robert emigrate from Paris to Spain and Portugal. In 1917, her uncle, who sent the couple money every month, dies. Now they have lost most of the money they lived on and need to earn money.
In 1918, Delaunay met Sergei Diaghilev, the organizer of the Russian Seasons in Paris, in Spain, who ordered costumes and sets for the ballet Cleopatra from Sonia. The artist opened her first fashion house, Casa Sonia, in Madrid. Her clients were the local elite, with whom Delaunay was introduced by Diaghilev.
The family returns to Paris in 1921, seven years later. Sonia makes “poem dresses” dedicated to Tristan Tzara and Vladimir Mayakovsky. She decides to return to accessories and hires workers who embroider with woolen threads on linen fabric. They make jackets, scarves and coats, one of which is bought by the American silent film star Gloria Swanson. When cars appear, Delaunay produces hats for driving cars. Business is going well, and Sonia organizes the production of printed simultaneous fabrics in the suburbs of Paris.
In the mid-1920s, she opened a studio, a fashion house, and registered a brand in France and America. In 1925, she presented fabrics at the International Exhibition of Industrial Products. Sonia Delaunay’s clothes were now worn not only by bohemians, but also by aristocrats. Women were allowed to wear swimsuits, and the artist made simultaneous beachwear. The cover of British Vogue features a model in an optical dress against the backdrop of a simultaneous Citroen.
In 1927, Sonia Delaunay reads a report on the influence of painting on fashion at a scientific conference in the Sorbonne. She receives an order from Dutch manufacturers. But in 1930, she decides to close the fashion house to work as an artist again.
In 1963, Sonia Delaunay donated 117 of her works and her husband’s paintings to France. A year later, she became the first artist to have a personal exhibition at the Louvre during her lifetime. In 1975, she was awarded the highest national award, the Legion of Honor.
Robert Delaunay died of cancer in 1941, Sonia Delaunay on December 5, 1979, at the age of 94. Their son Charles was a major music critic and jazz historian. He died in 1988.
The girl, originally from a Ukrainian village, inspired many artists and designers. Her simultaneous motifs were used by Marc Bohan for Dior, Gianni Versace in his first couture collection, Hermes, Chloe and others.
Now Charles Delaunay’s blanket is kept in the Georges Pompidou Center for Art and Culture. As a symbol of love for family, art and life. A symbol of the fact that you never know which thread will unravel the tangle of events and change your life forever.
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THE DESIGN LEGACY OF SONIA DELONEY
“For me there is no separation between my painting and the so-called decorative work. I have never considered “applied arts” as something that hinders the development of the artist; on the contrary, it was a continuation of my art.”
The work of the French artist and designer of Ukrainian origin Sonia Delaunay is a huge inspiring world of color. Delaunay was an outstanding representative of Art Deco, avant-garde and together with her husband Robert Delaunay created a new direction in painting – simultanism (another name – Orphism). The image of the movement of color in light – this is how the artist defined her works.
For the first time, form does not dominate, but is subordinate to color; for the first time, form is constructed not with the help of chiaroscuro, but with the help of the depth of color itself. Colors, like living organisms, influence each other, create the illusion of movement and rhythm. This approach was completely unique in painting.
In the works of Sonia Delaunay, color theory received due recognition and wide utilitarian application. Her work expanded the understanding of how color affects human perception, and the psychology of color itself became one of the most important tools of modern design.
Delaunay developed the ideas of simultanism not only on canvases, but also in the practical sphere: she created clothing and shoe designs, theatrical costumes, fabric and carpet designs for French factories, illustrated books, worked in ceramics and stained glass, and even designed cars.
Sonya’s Story
The future French artist, born Sarah Ilyinichna (Elievna) Stern, was born in 1885 in the city of Gradizhsk in the Poltava province, or, according to other sources, in Odessa. At the age of 5, due to the death of her father, Sarah was taken into the care of her uncle, Genrikh Terk, a successful St. Petersburg lawyer. Genrikh and his wife sincerely loved the girl and became her guardians. From that moment on, she became Sonya Terk.
The highly educated Terk family lived by art and traveled extensively throughout Europe. On the advice of her high school teachers, who recognized Sonia’s talent, she went to study painting professionally in Germany, at the Karlsruhe Academy of Art.
In 1905, Sonya, impressed by the book “Manet and His Circle” by Julius Meyer-Gref, decided to go to Paris, which the author of the book called the center of true art. Here she entered the Academy “La Palette”, achieved considerable success there, entered the circle of artistic bohemia and met her first husband – critic and gallery owner Wilhelm Uhde. Although their marriage was short-lived, they maintained friendship until the end of their days, Uhde often supported Sonya and her family and bought their paintings.
Painting
In 1908, Sonia Terk falls in love with and marries the young and talented abstract artist Robert Delaunay. From now on, she is Sonia Delaunay-Terk. Their union, based on love and creativity, became very fruitful. Together, they study the color theory of Eugène Chevreuil and experiment with color. Robert created an original method for constructing color structures from circles and arches. “Nothing horizontal or vertical – light deforms everything, breaks it,” wrote Delaunay. Within the framework of this theory, Sonia Delaunay’s first works in the genre of simultanism appear – Electric Prisms, Market in Minho and others.
Market in Minho
The history of the painting Electric Prisms – Prismes Electriques is interesting. One evening, while walking along the Boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris, Sonia Delaunay and Robert noticed the recently installed electric lights and the colored reflections they left on the sidewalk. Both artists tried to recreate the impressive reflections of these new inventions in their works.
This and many other works by Sonia inspired us to create the Prism model of wooden panels – link to the model on the website. In search of new ideas for panels, we, like many designers, collect references, spy on the greats, learn from the best in our industry or in other industries. The disadvantage of this method is the risk of being captivated by a pure idea already created by someone and only imitating it, without creating anything new. But in the case of studying the works of Delaunay, real chemistry occurred. In collaboration with designer Juanny Barcele Borges, we created Prism – a unique in form, unlike anything else model of wooden panels. Complex, volumetric, rhythmic, optical, built on contrast, Prism is an ordered chaos of all possible shades of wood.
The home of the most influential couple of the Parisian avant-garde is also gradually turning into an art object: Sonia Delaunay creates furniture, textiles, lamps and much more for it with her own hands. In her creations, she used multi-colored pieces of fabric, mixing them like a professional colorist and designer. Using this technique, she sewed a patchwork quilt for her son. It was this quilt, which is now kept in the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, that, according to researchers, marked the beginning of her special style.
Passionate about fashion and textiles, Sonia Delaunay created outfits for herself and her friends. The 1920s were truly revolutionary for fashion: not only because it was created not only by couturiers, but also by some cutting-edge artists. Sonia Delaunay was one of them. In 1918, Sonia opened Casa Sonia in Madrid, a fashion and interior design store that sold accessories, furniture and fabrics. The store was a great success, especially among the city’s aristocracy, and it opened branches in Bilbao, San Sebastian and Barcelona.
Her friend Sergei Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes, helped Sonya set up the shop and then commissioned her to design costumes for his production of Cleopatra at The London Coliseum.
Demand for Sonia’s fabrics was great. Upon her return to Paris, she hired a team of Russian women to make, knit, and embroider her products. In 1925, Delaunay founded her own fashion house and registered Simultan? as a trademark in both France and the United States. Her studio created textiles and clothing, and the fashion house, simply called “Sonia,” produced exclusive clothing for such distinguished clients as Hollywood actress Gloria Swanson, writer Nancy Cunard, architect Ern? Goldfinger, and others.
The outfits featured contrasting geometric shapes, expressive colors in the style of simultanism and were a great success. In 1925, Delaunay’s simultanism dress graced the cover of Vogue magazine.
For four decades, Delaunay designed fabrics for the Amsterdam luxury store Metz and Co, and then for the Liberty London store, which still exists today.
“Sonia Delaunay’s fabrics belong to the future because they correspond to modern painting, architecture, the bodies of machines, the beautiful and original forms of airplanes, in a word, to the breath of this active modern era, which has created a style closely linked to an intense, ever-accelerating life,” wrote Robert Delaunay.
This fabric sketch became the prototype for another of our panels – Matrix. Looking at the sketch, one gets the feeling that Sonia Delaunay came up with the QR code long before the famous development of the Japanese company Denso-Wave. This work traces a very strong parallel with our digital era of pixels and codes. In Matrix, together with designer Juanny Barcel? Borges, we came up with our own coding system – it consists of 3 square elements of different volumes. They, like units of information, form a matrix with a unique pattern.
After World War II, Delaunay joined the Groupe Espace, a collective of artists and architects that sought to integrate art into every element of everyday life. One of the most important projects she worked on during this time was the design of furniture for students at the Cite Internationale Universitaire in Paris.
Its design was a perfect blend of functionality and aesthetics, highlighted by a color-blocked bookcase that would look at home in a modern home office or living room.
Sonia Delaunay was the first female artist to be given a retrospective at the Louvre during her lifetime. The retrospective took place in 1964 and included 117 works by the artist that she personally selected and donated to the museum. Sonia Delaunay directed painting into the applied field, laid the foundations for mass production of clothing and the intelligent production of fabrics. She played a key role in making fashionable and practical clothing more accessible. Even with the increasing commercialization of her ideas and designs, she remained true to her artistic principles.
Her designs are still relevant today, copied and reproduced today, and serve as a source of inspiration and pure ideas for contemporary designers.