Sonia Delaunay: Simultaneity

Sonia Delaunay and the United States

Sonia Delaunay never traveled to the United States. “I never wanted to go there,” she declared to an interviewer in 1970. “I don’t like the mechanical side of things there.” But she had many American friends and collaborators and, throughout her career, she remained keen on expanding her reputation across the Atlantic, both in the fashion trade and as an artist. The first time Sonia Delaunay’s name appeared in the American press was in advertisements for her fabric designs in the 1920s. As her textile business was growing in Europe, she began marketing her products to American companies. Her simultané brand, characterized by brightly colored geometric patterns, was trademarked in the U.S. in 1925. The same year, her highly publicized participation in the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes in Paris boosted her international reputation and earned her a new clientele of wealthy American women attracted to avant garde fashion. Socialites, actresses, and other celebrities who travelled to Paris regularly sought to have clothes made for them by Delaunay. The film star Gloria Swanson commissioned a coat from her. When the young art dealer Edith Halpert, a friend of Delaunay’s, wore a dress Delaunay had made for her, she was surprised by the reactions of envy from her clients. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller—one of the founders of the Museum of Modern Art—explained

Sonia Delaunay in 1902 . © Pracusa20240531