Sonia Delaunay

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Sonia Delaunay (née Terk) (1885–1979) a Ukrainian painter, avant-garde artist (Orphist), designer was born in Odessa, Ukraine, as Sonia Terk to a Jewish family.

In 1890 Delaunay moved to St. Petersburg to live with her uncle. In 1904–1905 she took a two-year course in drawing in Karlsruhe Germany. In 1906 S.Terk moved to Paris. In 1910 she married the artist Robert Delaunay, with whom she founded the movement Orphism (1911) , noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. In 1914 she participated in Prismes Electrique in the Salon des Independants together with Alexander Archipenko, Kasimir Malevich, Vadym Meller, Aleksandra Ekster and others. In the same year she moved to Madrid. 1915–1916 she traveled to Portugal. In Portugal she and her husband Robert Delaunay met with several Portuguese artists, between them Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso (1887-1918), who they got to know in Paris and with whom they had an intense friendship. Sonia loved the light and the colours of North Portugal. She painted a lot of market scenes which show the Portuguese atmosphere. She painted water colours and made ceramics. In 1920 Sonia Terk returned to Paris. In 1924 she opened a fashion studio together with Jacques Heim. In 1925 she participated in Exposition Interationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris together with Nathan Altman, A. Ekster, V.Meller, A.Petritsky, and David Shterenberg. Her work extends to painting, textile design and stage set design. She was the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre in 1964 and in 1975 was named an officer of the French Legion of Honor. Sonia Delaunay-Terk died in 1979 in Paris.

Her work in modern design included the concepts of geometric abstraction, the integration of furniture, fabrics, wall coverings, and clothing.

She was a friend of the poet Blaise Cendrars, and created (again innovatively) a painting approx 6-foot tall x 1-foot wide representing one of his books of poems.

Her most important artistic contribution is the concept of "simultaneous" design. This includes the concept of Orphism - that one design when placed next to another affects both; this is similar to the theory of colors (e.g., Georges Seurat's pointillisme). She is arguably the inventor of the polka dot, as well as the use of zig-zags and other innovative designs in fabric, clothing, and home furnishing.

[edit] Legacy

Dalaunay's painting Coccinelle was featured on a stamp jointly released by the French Post Office, La Poste and the United Kingdom's Royal Mail in 2004 to commemorate the centenary of Entente Cordiale