Sonia Delaunay, a Founder of Abstractionism, in New UWS Exhibition: Haute Couture, Furniture, Merch, and More

By Wendy Blake

Sonia Delaunay is considered one of the founders of abstract painting, and a new exhibition reflects the breadth of her creativity, which extended from haute couture and interior design to tapestries and even “merch.” The show, at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery on West 86th Street, presents nearly 200 of her pieces, many of which have never been displayed or are on view for the first time in the United States.

Bard Graduate Center research curator Laura Microulis and art historian Waleria Dorogova relied on groundbreaking research in assembling the exhibition. “Delaunay was not only creative in so many disciplines, effacing the conventional distinction between fine and decorative arts, but was also extremely aware of the value of branding,” says Dorogova, who recently led a tour of the show. “She was a pioneer of self-promotion and self-fashioning well before the birth of modern advertising as we know it. And she worked every day of her life.”

The artist was born in Odessa (now part of Ukraine) in 1885 to working-class Jewish parents in the Pale of Settlement. She was sent at the age of five to St. Petersburg to live with wealthy relatives, who enrolled her in prestigious European art schools. In 1905, she arrived in Paris, then the electrifying center of avant-garde art (and the city she would call home), and in 1910, married painter Robert Delaunay. They created the practice of Simultanism, which explored the way in which juxtaposing different colors could create visual vibrations. Their vivid, geometric paintings were based in cubism but tended more toward expressive abstraction. Simultanism, Dorogova notes, also described Sonia Delaunay’s idea of the inseparability of art and life.

A prime example of how Delaunay’s life was a work of art is a unique dress she made for herself (never seen before in this country), bringing together disparate materials, from tweed and parachute silk to upholstery fabric and faux fur. Outfitted in this dress, she made the scene in Paris with her husband, for whom she made a matching waistcoat; they were addressed by artist friends as Madame and Monsieur Simultané. Her careful efforts to construct a distinctive artistic identity are explored in the first gallery, which shows how she used color and typography to design her name and use it as a logo.

The ideal of merging art and life propelled her to produce objects of all kinds, including a colorful toy chest for their son, Charles (who became a famous jazz musician and promoter). She designed a rug inspired by the Dadaist poems of Tristan Tzara, an elegant sideboard with geometric inlay, an embroidered chair, polka-dotted furnishings for a child’s room, and more.

During the Nazi occupation of France, she and her husband moved south, where Robert died of cancer in 1941. Her creative energy was not curtailed, however, though materials were scarce. She managed to source colors and downsized the scale of her paintings.

The exhibition highlights her lesser-known work in the postwar years. In the 1960s and 1970s, she became known in the U.S. for her tapestries. A large and impressive example is on display, commissioned by the French state.

She also extended her design talents to a variety of other objects, from tableware and album covers for her son to items that could be sold in multiples such as scarves and playing cards meant to be sold in museum gift stores. She was even asked to design the coloring of a car when she was 82 years old.

Dorogova acknowledges Delaunay for the foresight she had in donating her artwork and Robert’s to national institutions; Delaunay knew that artists who didn’t do so often fell into obscurity.

Though Delaunay was recognized internationally, she considered it a great honor to be seen as a truly French artist, when President Georges Pompidou gave one of her paintings to President Richard Nixon.

In her later years, Delaunay, who always loved being out and about in Paris, would have her chauffeur take her in her Rolls-Royce for an hour-long drive each day to see the town. Her endless output and curiosity lasted her entire life. Even on the day of her death in 1979, at the age of 94, says Dorogova, she began the day with getting dressed, putting on her makeup and hat, and saying “I have so much to do today.”

 * * *

Bard Graduate Center is dedicated to the study of material culture and design history. “Sonia Delaunay: Living Art” is on display until July 7 at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery, at 18 West 86th Street.

Subscribe to WSR’s free email newsletter here.