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Home , Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay

! WEEK 5: -TERK

Sonia Delaunay-Terk (1885-1979) — Abstract painter and designer ! WEEK 5: SONIA DELAUNAY-TERK

Inspiration

Have you read ‘Big Magic’ by Elizabeth Gilbert? If not: I highly recommend it. In this book, Gilbert talks about following your curiosity. curiosity 1. the desire to learn or know more about something or someone

2. something that is interesting because it is unusual

It struck a chord with me, because that’s exactly what I always do. I think I’ve done it all my life. And you know what: when I follow my curiosity, inspiration is never far behind! inspiration 1. something that makes someone want to do something or that gives someone an idea about what to do or create : a force or influence that inspires someone

2. a person, place, experience, etc., that makes someone want to do or create something

3. a good idea

There is another concept that Gilbert talks about in her book: synchronicity. synchronicity 1. the quality or fact of being synchronous

2. the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung

If something or someone pops up in different places, I get curious: Why does this person or thing suddenly catch my eye? If I then I go and find out more, I always find something interesting, something useful. I learn something. It becomes part of my bagage and I carry it with me until I find what it is I need it for.

Gilbert believes that this is inspiration seeking you. It will keep popping up until you act on it. Or, if you don’t act on it, it will find someone else that will!

Soooo… Why am I telling you all this? Because it’s exactly what happened to me with Sonia Delaunay. ! WEEK 5: SONIA DELAUNAY-TERK

Why Sonia Delaunay? I first noticed her at the Museum of in New York in November 2009.

In my memory I turned a corner and I found myself in a space full of Orphist works. I was blown away by the colours and geometric shapes of especially Kupka and the Delaunays.

Orphism or Orphic , a term coined by the French poet in 1912, was an offshoot of Cubism that focused on pure abstraction and bright colors, influenced by , the theoretical writings of , Charles Henry and the dye chemist Eugène Chevreul.

This movement, perceived as key in the transition from Cubism to , was pioneered by František Kupka, and Sonia Delaunay, who relaunched the use of color during the monochromatic phase of Cubism. The meaning of the term was elusive when it first appeared and remains to some extent vague. (Source: Wikipedia)

Simultanist by Sonia and her husband Robert Delaunay hung side by side. I snapped a picture of the Portugese market (1915) and the sign next to it, so I would remember to google her at home. I was curious about this sole female artist in what seemed to be a male-dominated . And I was most of all shocked that I had never heard about her before! ! WEEK 5: SONIA DELAUNAY-TERK

Whilst I was preparing for this e-course I found out that I had already seen Sonia’s work waaaaay before 2009. It just hadn’t made any impact on me, probably because it was on a poor quality postcard.

There is a magic to seeing art in real life. Art really does not photograph well and most images online and in books really do not do the real thing any justice. So don’t be fooled by bland reproductions or pixelated images. Nothing compares to standing in front of a piece of art, face-to-face. This is one of my pet peeves…Go to the museum. It’s worth it!

I came home from my NY trip and I looked for Sonia Delaunay online. I didn’t find much at the time. Remember: this was in the dark ages before Pinterest! And then my interest faded…

Curiosity Cue my recent Vogue obsession… For no apparent reason the magazine appeared on my radar last year. It came up in relation to several Inspired by subjects and then it suddenly seemed to pop up everywhere for me. Sonia reappeared with it: her fashion and patterns on the front cover of vintage issues of Vogue! ! WEEK 5: SONIA DELAUNAY-TERK

Inspired by is a personal (blog) project I share with my friend Riikka Kovasin. It’s a monthly challenge were Riikka and I decide on a theme (and that theme can be anything from an artist, a film, a book, a , to an item, colour scheme or material) and then we create something with that theme or thing in mind. We keep the results secret from each other until we both publish it on our blogs.

In the blog posts I reveal a lot about my thought process and where my inspiration comes from!

Synchronicity In August I visited the Gemeentemuseum in the Hague with my mum. At the end of our visit we went into the museum bookstore… and there it was: this big, beautiful book about Sonia Delaunay. I didn’t buy it, but that would only be a matter of time.

(I was oblivious to the fact that this book was at the Gemeentemuseum because there was a huge Sonia Delaunay retrospective happening at … I would have gone out of my way to go to London just to see it, if only I had known!)

And lastly: there she was in Marieke’s list of awesome artists… I could not deny the signs any longer: I had to choose her!

About Sonia

Sonia fascinates me in so many ways:

- incorporating art into the ordinary - female artist providing for the family - patterns, patterns, patterns - colours, colours, colours - fashion/Vogue - the twenties, thirties and retro - and then… notebooks… gotta love that!

1885-1905 Sonia was born in the Ukraine in 1885. When she was very young, she was adopted by her uncle Henri Terk and he changed her name from Sara Stern to Sonia Terk. She went to live in . ! WEEK 5: SONIA DELAUNAY-TERK

When she was 18 she went to Karlsruhe in to studie art. But was the place to be back then, so she left Karlsruhe for Paris as soon as she saw the chance.

Just imagine: this was the time when electric (street) lights were installed, cars became more widely available, the first airplane was invented, people started making jazz music. Women were standing up for their rights, things were changing rapidly. Paris was buzzing with all these new, modern things and concepts. These were exciting times!

Paris In Paris Sonia became friends with , a collector and art dealer. Through him she got to know lots of people in the French avant-garde scene. Not just painters like Picasso, Braque and Rousseau, but also poets, actors and dancers. She studied at the Academie de la Palette and discovers Fauvism.

When her family wants her to return home, she and Uhde agree to a marriage of convenience in 1908. This way Sonia could stay in Paris and it suited Uhde too, because he was gay.

Sonia also met Robert Delaunay around that time. He’s a young, ambitious painter and they fall in love. The marriage with Uhde is terminated and Robert and Sonia marry in 1910.

Simultanism For the Delaunays everything revolved around colour.

The couple developed a colour theory based on the sensation of rhythm and movement when placing contrasting colours side by side. They called it Simultanism and they both explored it in their abstract art. ! WEEK 5: SONIA DELAUNAY-TERK

Because Sonia did not distinguish between art, design, craft, decoration (it was all the same to her), she also applied Simultanism to her decorative arts and design. ! WEEK 5: SONIA DELAUNAY-TERK

Poichor and gouache In 1912 Sonia meets poet and they decide to work together on a two meter long ‘poem- painting’: ‘La Prose de Transsibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France’.

The thing I found fascinating about this accordion book is that it is coloured with use of the pochoir technique. A pochoir is a stencil. As I understand it, Sonia created an original art work and then a stencil was made for each individual colour. Just imagine how many stencils were needed to reproduce this book!

I’ve read that the stencils were probably cut by someone else, but Sonia apparently coloured the stencils in herself. She used gouache for this and sometimes (a glaze of) watercolour.

In the video I talk about gouache. It wasn’t on the supply list, so I used diluted soft body acrylics instead. Gouache is a fun medium though and I encourage you to try it out if you are looking for something new to try, especially in your art journal. It’s an opaque watercolour that dries matte. It’s perfect to write with because of the nice flow and as you can see: it’s also perfect for stenciling!

Fashion Sonia and Robert were in Spain when WOI broke out and could not go back to Paris. They stay in Spain and . During their exile, the October revolution takes place and they loose the Russian properties that Sonia had inherited from her family.

In 1918 Sonia opens Casa Sonia, her first interior decoration and fashion shop in Madrid. The Delaunays also start creating scenery and stage costumes for the theatre and later (silent) film. ! WEEK 5: SONIA DELAUNAY-TERK

The Delaunays return to Paris in the 1920s. Sonia starts creating ‘robes poèmes' (poetry dresses), where she combined her fashion with Dadaist poetry. In 1925 she sets up a boutique Simultané where she sells her fashion and textile designs. She starts collaborating with Metz & Co and Liberty department stores.

During the Depression interest in her clothing fades, but she doesn’t quit designing fabrics.

In 1937 the Delaunays provide mural decorations for the Paris International Exposition. This is the same exposition where Picasso’s Guernica is the center piece of the Spanish pavilion. ! WEEK 5: SONIA DELAUNAY-TERK

Robert is diagnosed with cancer and dies in 1941. Sonia mostly stays in Grasse during WOII and returns to Paris in 1945.

After the war Sonia develops her interest in different media, creating mosaics, tapestries and lithographs. She dedicates years to promoting her late husband’s work before she slowly starts to paint and exhibit again herself.

In 1964 she became the first female artist to have a retrospective at the . She kept on painting and designing until her death in 1979. She lived long enough to enjoy her success.

She was a true Parisian grande dame until the very end. ! WEEK 5: SONIA DELAUNAY-TERK

Sources

Recommended reading, watching, listening Big Magic - Elizabeth Gilbert Steal like an artist - Austin Kleon Magic Lessons - Podcast La Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France Sonia Delaunay - Mademoiselle Y SONIA DELAUNAY My Pinterest board about Sonia Delaunay

Where I got my info about Sonia Delaunay Cooper-Hewitt: Sonia Delaunay - A Conversation Among Friends Sonia Delaunay - Anne Montfort and Cecile Godefroy Sonia Delaunay: Art into Fashion - Elizabeth Morano Color Moves: Art & Fashion by Sonia Delaunay - Petra Timmer and Matteo de Leeuw-de Monti Robert and Sonia Delaunay: The Triumph of Color - Hajo Duchting Tate website

! WEEK 5: SONIA DELAUNAY-TERK

About Marsha

My name is Marsha Valk and I’m a craft blogger/writer/educator from the Netherlands. My current crafty adventures started in 2003 when I discovered scrapbooking, but I’ve been a creative soul all my life and I’ve been interested in art history and modern art for as long as I can remember.

In the last two years my focus has shifted from scrapbooking to mixed media/art journaling and general crafts. I don’t consider myself an art journaler, but I do create art journal pages. Just like I scrapbook or paint or crochet whenever I feel like it.

I have a growing need in me to create my own stuff - to make ‘something’ out of ‘nothing’ in my own authentic way. Nowadays I much rather create my own patterned papers, use my own lettering and marks to tell my stories.

I guess that’s why I’m so drawn to Sonia Delaunay. She also made everything herself and she did not feel a need to choose between drawing, painting, needlework, sewing, home decor, designing clothes or theatre costumes, textile patterns and making books. It was all part of the same thing: her artistic and creative life. ! WEEK 5: SONIA DELAUNAY-TERK

At the beginning of 2015 I joined the design team for Elizabeth Craft Designs and I’m also part of the team behind the Love Art Happy Life Facebook page/group. I have my own YouTube channel where I share videos about mixed media card making and kids crafts.

Marieke and I used to work for the same company, but we never met in real life whilst working there. Now we have met several times and we’ve even worked together on Meer dan Kleur, a Dutch magazine about colouring for adults.

Find me here Website: marshavalk.com Blog: marshavalk.com/blog YouTube: marsha valk or valkm2 Facebook: marshavalk Instagram: marshavalk Pinterest: marshavalk