Sonia Delaunay: Simultaneity

Note on the Exhibition As the gallery begins our 45th year in business, it seems appropriate to be celebrating with an exhibition of works on paper by Sonia Delaunay. Though not often shown in the United States, Sonia Delaunay’s work has a critical place in the history of modern art, not just for her innovative contributions to art and design, but also for the unique ways in which she met the challenges she faced as a female artist in early twentieth century France. Sonia Delaunay herself traced her inspiration to work abstractly to a quilt she sewed by hand for her baby son in 1911 (now in the collection of the Musé e d’Art Moderne, Paris), an apt beginning for a female artist whose work would continue to be connected to textile design. Delaunay went on to produce paintings, works on paper, textile designs, fashion sketches, and graphic designs, an unusually broad array of media for any artist. Working alongside her husband, Robert Delaunay, in inventing an artistic movement that was a coda to Cubism, Sonia Delauanay’s own innovations are in the use of color and its interplay to portray the dynamism of what was then modern life. Perhaps even more unique but equally significant was Sonia Delaunay’s ability to merge fine and decorative arts, something that is especially pertinent to art being made today. In her designs for textiles, particularly her colorful and vibrant fabric patterns, we recognize a radical break from traditional patterns that reflects the modernist sensibility of the rapidly changing world she lived in between and during the two World Wars. Delaunay’s work in fashion, place her then and now at the intersection of the fine and decorative arts. Her success in environments that did not traditionally value women’s artistic achievements was groundbreaking. As a highly visible and respected figure in Parisian art circles, she defied the gender norms of her time and created a model for future generations of female artists. This same collaborative spirit has inspired the gallery over the years and we are greatly appreciative to have worked on this project with Michel and Yves Zlotowski, Isabelle Dervaux, Richard Riss for expertise, Amelia Gorman in the gallery, Christa Savino for catalogue organization, and to Larry Sunden for catalogue design.

Color is the skin of the world.

— Sonia Delaunay

Jill Newhouse January 2025