Sonia Delaunay

Born Sarah Stern in what is now Odessa, Ukraine, she was adopted by her affluent uncle following her parents’ death in 1890 and moved to St. Petersburg, where she received a private education and early exposure to the arts. At the age of 16, she began taking formal drawing classes where her notable talent was first noticed and led to her enrollment at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, Germany.

In 1905, Delaunay moved to Paris where she enrolled at the Académie de La Palette and immersed herself in the vibrant avant-garde circles that flourished in the city. Frustrated with the traditionalism and harsh criticism of the Académie, she spent most of her time in Modern art galleries around Paris where she met Germany art dealer and gallery owner Wilhelm Uhde, with whom she entered a marriage of convenience in 1908.

Providing mutual benefit, this marriage acted as a cover for Uhde’s homosexuality and offered Delaunay the opportunity to remain living in France and exhibit her work at his gallery. Nevertheless, the marriage was not to last and the pair divorced in 1910 before Delaunay married her second husband, Robert Delaunay, later that year.

Alongside her new husband, Delaunay developed Orphism, an artistic style that prized colour over form and occurs when two images are placed next to one another, and both are simultaneously affected by the other. Believing that art should be lived as much as it is viewed, it was through this technique that she brought her vision of colour harmony into the realms of fashion, textiles and interior design.

With the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917, Delaunay stopped receiving financial support from her wealthy family members and was forced to expand her artistic practice into textiles and interior design to support herself and her young child. Her innovative fabric patterns and bold, geometric garments made her a central figure in modern design and the Spanish avant-garde until she moved back to Paris permanently in 1921.

In Paris, Delaunay increasingly focused on blending visual art with fashion design, receiving commissions for designs that featured her geometrical shapes and bold colours which eventually lead to her starting her own business and trademarking the simultané brand. However, she never entirely moved away from the visual arts and continued painting and exhibiting avidly throughout her life, receiving a gold medal for her two murals at the Paris World’s Fair in 1937 and being a founding member of Réalités Nouvelles in 1939.

In 1964, Delaunay became the first living female artist to receive a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre, cementing her influence on Modern art in painting, design and textiles.