Sonia Delaunay

The Russian artist Sonia Delaunay worked as a painter and designer in Paris. In her early works she was inspired by artists such as Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. In Paris she met and married Robert Delaunay, an aspiring avant-garde artist. Both dealt intensively with the representation of light and movement and they found a new form of artistic expression on the basis of simultaneous contrast. Together they founded Orphism, a variant of Cubism that opposes pure music with pure painting. Sonia Delaunay dealt with the problems of color, light and movement in her works using many case studies. The transfer of these artistic intentions to everyday culture, above all in fashion design, interior design and theater equipment, made Sonia Delaunay one of the most important representatives of the Art Deco movement.

born 1885 Gradižsk, formerly Russian Empire
1903-1905 studied drawing at the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts
1908 move to Paris
1910 Marries the painter Robert Delaunay
1912 Emergence of Orphism
1914 stays in Portugal and in Madrid with her family
1937 Decoration of a pavilion at the Paris World Exhibition together with Robert Delaunay
1976 bequest of her entire graphic work to the Center Pompidou in Paris
Died 1979 Paris, France