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We are delighted to present an exhibition of selected gouaches and lithographs by Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979).
Sonia Delaunay was at the forefront of cultural developments in Europe throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Born in the Ukraine in 1885, she grew up in St Petersburg and studied at the academy of fine arts in Karlsruhe, Germany. In 1905 she moved to Paris, and she was based there for the rest of her life. Associates there were Van Gogh, Cézanne and Gauguin, as well as Matisse, Derain, Braque, Vlaminck and Dufy. She met her husband, Robert Delaunay, in 1909, and they were to live and work together for more than thirty years.
She initially worked with applied or decorative arts ranging from quilts, boxes, cushions, fabrics, furniture to set design. From the 1940s, Delaunay began to focus on painting, and produced gouaches on paper that she called ‘Rythme coloré’, indicating the importance that ‘the infinite combinations of colour’ have always had on her work [see ‘Rythme Coloré’ (above), gouache and watercolour on paper, signed and dated 1942].
Her reputation was cemented with a full-scale retrospective at the Musée Nationale d’Art Moderne in Paris in 1967. In 1969 she was awarded the International Grand Prize for Women Artists by the Salon International de la Femme, Cannes and in 1975 she received the highest cultural accolade possible in France: the Légion d’honneur. Her work can be found in numerous public and private collections including the Tate, London, the Louvre and Centre Pompidou, Paris.
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