ROBERT AND SONIA DELAUNAY GREAT FALLS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ART ENRICHMENT APRIL 2018

 Robert and Sonia Delaunay had a truly one-of-a-kind artistic marriage. Although he was the more famous of the two, together they formulated their artistic principles and each one created art alone as well as together. They truly lived their art, making it, wearing it, dancing it, Robert and discussing it, sharing it. Sonia Delaunay  Robert was born in 1885 to upper-class parents, but sadly his father left when he was very small. His mother “The Countess” was eccentric and often away, so his uncle brought him up in the country. Robert spent his time in nature and was always drawing, but he wasn’t good at school. Through his family connections, he began working as an artist painting sets at about age 18.  He copied famous artists of his time, like Picasso and Cezanne, looking around for a style to call his own. Always, he loved color.  He met a young Ukranian woman who had come to Paris to be an artist, and they fell in love. Sonia also loved bright colors and thought that was the key to art and life. They married and had a son, Charles.

 Sonia said, "In Robert Delaunay, I found a poet -- who wrote not with words but with colors."  They lived in a Paris apartment, on the same street as Picasso, packed with art and friends, plus their son, of course!  Here are a couple of their early paintings. Robert used rough patches of color to create a landscape. For future reference, remember that sun disk with the rings around it – that’s going to be important.

 Sonia at that time painted portraits using color to give the figure expression, not naturalistically.

Robert was fascinated with the Eiffel Tower, which had only recently been built in Paris. He was interested in all aspects of modern life, like new technology and transportation. This Eiffel Tower looks a bit wonky, but he was trying to show it from all different angles at the same time, like the Cubists had been doing. You can feel the energy of the city of Paris all around it. And, it has been called a modern tribute to French glory, even using the red-white-and-blue color palette.  Sonia and Robert loved to go out dancing, usually wearing colorful clothes that she designed and made. Here is a painting she made of dancers at the ball. It’s hard to tell immediately what she has portrayed, but if you look closely you can see the individual figures whirling across the floor.

 This large disk painting is what really made Robert Delaunay’s reputation, partly because it was so ahead of its time. There was almost

Frank Stella, 1967 no truly abstract painting at this time. There was a lot of experimentation, but almost everyone still included recognizable objects. Delaunay, with Sonia’s help, spent long hours working with a prism in a darkened room to figure out how different colors reacted next Kenneth Noland, 1960 to each other. This painting was more of an exercise in how color creates rhythm and movement – Robert and Sonia called it “pure painting.”  The disk was painted in 1913, and it was long thought that it wasn’t exhibited until ten years later because even the Delaunays didn’t really appreciate its importance. But scholars have learned that it was in fact part of several exhibits in the 19-teens and that many artists knew of this first truly nonobjective painting.  It did take many decades, however, before its influence bore real fruit, with two examples being these abstract paintings from the 1960s.

In this painting you can see that Robert is using the colorful circles and arcs to create the swirly movement of wind and air. This painting is a tribute to an early pilot whose successful flights were described in all the French newspapers. Although it is almost abstract, you can see the Eiffel Tower, an old-fashioned airplane in the sky, and a propeller on the left. There are probably other objects hidden in there, too!

 Around this time, Sonia started painting circles and arcs, too. In fact, she made more abstract art – or “pure painting” – than Robert did in their earlier days. She was also the primary provider for the family, first with an allowance from Russian relatives, and then when the Russian Revolution put an end to that, from all her various projects.  Sonia made things that they used every day or could sell -- clothes and bedcovers, painted chests and chairs, lampshades, and other stuff – mostly just for fun. She also collaborated with their writer friends, creating book covers and painting illustrations for their works.  She created an art- and laughter-filled home. Unlike some other artists we have learned about, people said that the Delaunays were happy and devoted to each other. They had many talented and supportive friends.

 They were on holiday in Spain when World War I broke out, so they moved to Portugal to keep safe. They stayed in Lisbon for several years. While they were there, Sonia opened a shop and sold her creations.  Along with abstract art, Robert still made paintings with recognizable people in them, like this Tall Portuguese Lady. But his circles were useful for a hat, a jar, the rug, the table and the dishes!

 And there’s a picture of Sonia modeling items she made to sell in her shop. Although they were of course distressed about the war, their time in Portugal was relatively fruitful.

 Robert and Sonia moved back to Paris after the war, where they collaborated on stage sets and large murals. Sonia also made costumes for the theatre, the opera and films, as well as to sell as fashion. Here are some of here designs.  Sonia has only in recent years gotten the recognition that she deserves as being Robert’s creative partner and for the work she did on her own. There was a large exhibition in London in 2015 that gathered together many of her fabric designs. They looked absolutely modern, as though you could find dresses made from them online today.

 Around 1930, Robert decided to devote himself to abstract painting. Many of his friends, such as Mondrian, were working in this style and holding exhibitions. It had become more accepted to paint a “picture of nothing”!  Here is one called Rhythm, Joy of Life. Although the bright colors and playful shapes seem placed at random, in fact he strictly followed his own rules of color balance and coordination. He continued with light and optic experiments and began using other materials on his paintings to create texture, like sand and sawdust or applied pieces of wood.  Often his paintings were huge, either murals or the size of a wall.

 The Delaunays got many public commissions, and they really believed in the importance of public art. For example, they were hired to design the interiors of the Palace of Aviation and the Railway Palace for the 1935 World Exhibition in Paris. They got 50 of their friends to join the project, which totalled 26,000 square feet!  The murals on the left were Robert’s from the Railway Palace. You can see that some of the circles have become cogs, and the whole thing has an industrial feel.  The enormous painting called Rhythm No. 1 hangs in the Pompidou Centre in Paris. You can see here again the influence of airplane propellers and instrument panels, evoking the artist’s love of speed and technology.

Sonia! This is one of Sonia’s designs for the Railway Palace, which she called Long Journeys. And on the right, only in black-and-white, unfortunately, you can see her way over on the right, with her artist friends celebrating the completion of one of the large panels that was installed above the stairway pictured below.

 When World War II broke out, the Delaunays fled to south of France. Robert was already ill with cancer, although it went largely untreated. He died in 1941.  Robert’s last series of paintings was called Rhythms Without End, which were colorful circles lined up on an axis, creating a rhythm only stopped by the edge of the page.  You can almost see them spinning …

 For over 15 years after Robert’s death, Sonia’s main focus was to make his work known to a larger audience. With help from a few friends, she collected and published Robert’s many scattered writings and documents. She organized the first major retrospective of his work in 1946 in Paris. She resolved that his true importance be recognized by the art community and the broader public.  In the 1950s, she returned to her own work, which became much more freeform and relaxed. She still used strong colors in combination, but the compositions were simpler and the shapes more varied. Some of her designs like this one were made into enormous tapestries by the famous Aubusson artisans.

 Throughout her long life, Sonia continued to experiment and create. She designed costumes for the Ballets Russes in 1968, at the age of 83. She designed stained glass windows, car bodies, clothes, scarves, tapestries, and a set of porcelain dishes, among other things.  Sonia continued to be a champion for color and for pure painting until her death at 94. It’s hard to know in the end exactly how the Delaunays’ partnership worked, but one thing is for sure: She did not follow him down his artistic path. At times, she was ahead of him. For them, color was not only the most important element in painting, it was also the organizing principle of life, and the place that joy springs from.  Sonia was buried alongside her beloved Robert near Paris.