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Spaightwood Galleries
Sonia Delaunay (Russia, 1885-France, 1979)
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Like Marc Chagall, Nataliya Goncharova and her lifelong companion Mikhail Larionov, Sonia Delaunay emigrated from Russia to Paris in the first years of the twentieth century, joining Picaso, Matisse, Braque, Rouault, and Vlaminck in the remaking of art in the early moments of the Post-Impressionist era. Sonia Terk Delaunay settled in Paris in 1905, met and married Robert Delaunay in 1910, and joined with him in the development of Orphism, a movement based in Cubism but determined to bring new lyrcism and color to the rather severe works of Picasso and Braque. During the 1920s, she focused upon bringing this new artistic lyricism into the world of high fashion, transforming fabrics for fashion into a moveable artistic feast. In the 1930s, she returned to a renewed focus on painting, joining the Abstraction-Creation group in seeking to create an art based upon non-representational elements, often geometrical, and continuing to focus on color as central to painting. The group was trans-national, and including among its members Jean/Hans Arp, Jean Helion, Barbara Hepworth, Wassily Kandinsky, El Lissitsky, and Piet Mondrian. After her husband's death in 1941, she continued to work as a painter and designer, turning often to printmaking as well. In 1963 she donated 58 of her own works and 40 of herhusband's to the Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris, and became the first woman ever to be exhibited at the Louvre during her lifetime the following year when the Louvre mounted an exhibition of this gift. Since her death, her importance in the development of abstract art can be seen in the number of major retrospectives and the number of books published about her as sampled in the bibliography below. In addition ot the etching illustrated below, we have recently acquired a number of pochoirs done in the 1920s and published c. 1930 which we will shortly be adding to the site. In an essay she wrote for her retrospective at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in 1967, Delaunay wrote, of her experiments in color from the 1920s, "they were and remain ranges of colors, and based on the purified coneption of our [hers and her husband Robert's] painting. . . . My research was purely pictorial an d in plastic terms a discovery which served both of us in our painting. Rhythm is based upon numbers, for color can be measured by the number of vibrations" (Baron and Damase, Sonia Delaunay: The Life of an Artist [London: Thames & Hudson, 1995], 91-98).
Select Bibliography: Stanley Baron & Jacques Damase, Sonia Delaunay: The Life of an Artist (London: Thames & Hudson, 1995); Sherry A. Buckberrough, Sonia Delaunay: A Retrospective (Buffalo, NY: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 1980); Florence Callu, Sonia & Robert Delaunay Collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1977); Arthur A. Cohen, Sonia Delaunay (NY: Abrams, 1988); Arthur A. Cohen, ed. The New Art of Color: The Writings of Robert and Sonia Delaunay (NY: Viking 1978); Jacques Damase, Sonia Delaunay: Fashion and Fabrics (NY: Abrams, 1991); Michael Damase, Sonia Delaunay; Rhythms and Colours (Greenwich: New York Graphic Society, 1972); Sonia Delaunay & Tristan Tzara, La rencontre Sonia Delaunay - Tristan Tzara (Paris: Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1977; preface by J. Lassaigne); Michel Hoog, Robert et Sonia Delaunay, Inventaire des Collections Publiques Francaises 15, Paris, Musee National D'art Moderne (Paris: Editions des Musees Nationaux Paris, 1967); Michel Hoog & Simone Guillaume, Sonia Delaunay / Robert Delaunay (Nancy: Musee des Beaux Arts, 1972); Sandor Kuthy & Kuniko Satonobu, Sonia & Robert Delaunay Bern: Kunstmuseum Bern, 1991); Andre Lhote, Sonia Delaunay: Ses Peinture, Ses Objets, Ses Tissus Simltanes (Paris, Librairie des Arts Decoratifs, 1925); Axel Madsen, Sonia Delaunay, artist of the lost generation (NY: McGraw-Hill 1989); The National Gallery of Canada, Robert and Sonia Delaunay (1965); Diana Vreeland, Sonia Delaunay: Art in Fashion (NY: George Braziller, 1994).
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Untitled. Watercolor and crayon on paper signed "Sonia Delaunay 1917" in pencil lower right. Inscribed on the back: "Sonia Delaunay N° 13. Galerie Saint Laurent N° 115. F.W STEIN." Image size: 250x178mm. Price: SOLD.
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Composition 24. Original color pochoir, c. 1930. Published in Compositions, Couleurs, Idées (Editions d'Art Charles Moreau, Paris, 1930). I have not been able to find any information about the size of the edition, but I would guess that it was fairly small. This piece was exhibited at the Delaunay retrospective shown at the Bibliothèque Nationale in 1977. Image size: 253x200mm. Price: SOLD.
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Composition 27. Original color pochoir, c. 1930. Published in Compositions, Couleurs, Idées (Editions d'Art Charles Moreau, Paris, 1930). I have not been able to find any information about the size of the edition, but I would guess that it was fairly small. This piece was exhibited at the Delaunay retrospective shown at the Bibliothèque Nationale in 1977. Image size: 252x200mm. Price: SOLD.
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Composition 36. Original color pochoir, c. 1930. Published in Compositions, Couleurs, Idées (Editions d'Art Charles Moreau, Paris, 1930). I have not been able to find any information about the size of the edition, but I would guess that it was fairly small. This piece was exhibited at the Delaunay retrospective shown at the Bibliothèque Nationale in 1977. Image size: 220x172mm. Price: SOLD
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Composition 22. Original color pochoir, c. 1930. Published in Compositions, Couleurs, Idées (Editions d'Art Charles Moreau, Paris, 1930). I have not been able to find any information about the size of the edition, but I would guess that it was fairly small. Image size: 268x207mm. Price: SOLD.
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Composition 35. Original color pochoir, c. 1930. Published in Compositions, Couleurs, Idées (Editions d'Art Charles Moreau, Paris, 1930). I have not been able to find any information about the size of the edition, but I would guess that it was fairly small. Image size: 250x153mm. Price: $850.
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Composition 39. Original color pochoir, c. 1930. Published in Compositions, Couleurs, Idées (Editions d'Art Charles Moreau, Paris, 1930). I have not been able to find any information about the size of the edition, but I would guess that it was fairly small. Image size: 200x162mm. Price: $850.
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Composition 30. Original color pochoir, c. 1930. Published in Compositions, Couleurs, Idées (Editions d'Art Charles Moreau, Paris, 1930). I have not been able to find any information about the size of the edition, but I would guess that it was fairly small. Image size: 208x158mm. Price: $850.
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Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to sptwd@verizon.net. We accept AmericanExpress, DiscoverCard, MasterCard, and Visa.
Spaightwood Galleries is located at 120 Main St (aka Highway 140) in Upton MA at the corner of Main St and Maple Ave in a rehabilitated Unitarian Church. For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.
Visiting hours: Saturday and Sunday noon to six and other times by arrangement. Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.
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