Sonia Delaunay

Sonia Delaunay wearing one of her owned desings

http://katedaviesdesigns.com/tag/sonia-delaunay/

             Sonia Delaunay was a 20th century artist who had inspired many women, not only female artists or artists in general but also those the women that besides all the home labor that needs to be done especially for the ones that are mothers and devoted wives. There are types of women that share a commom professional career just like Delaunay who had a really busy scheduled as we all do. As the Guerrilla Girls confirm with Sonia owned words " I have led three lives: one for Robert, one for my son and my grandsons, a shorter one for myself. I dont regret not having given myself more attention. I really didnt have time" ( 61).

           As a big fan of patterns and colors, Delaunay became one of my favorites for her enormous passion for color and shapes. Delaunay was a painter and a fashion designer. As Chadwick stated in her book " During the years when Omega was active, ease of movement and primacy of color as expressive medium also characterized Delaunay's work in both painting and decoration" (260). She used geometric shapes in her work. Also, she was interested in patterns of surface design. Moreover, her work is characterize by her used of different shapes in her paintings as well in her designs. She wanted to communicate with materials. Her specialization was textiles and embroidery.

            Delaunay Background influenced her work. She was born in Ukraine and in a working class Jews family were she lived to the age of five. One of her family members, her uncle who was a professional wanted to adopt her. Mrs. Delaunay's financial life progressed once she moved with her uncle. She went from a working class in a small town in Russia to where he lived. She was educated and had a good position and enjoyed some advantages that other women didn't have at that time. She obtain a stronger personality and independent wealth. She was studying art in Germany. However, she was independent women who wanted to able to make decisions for her own future. She decide to stay in Paris and determined to stay there found a way to stay by marrying a friend. Delaunay arranged the marriage of convenience. She actually began with her art exhibition in her  husband's gallery. However, she divorced her husband and married a progressive artist, Robert Delaunay, who she felt deeply in love. The fruit of this love gave her a son. Delaunay, was a women who didn't stay in once place she actually moved and encounter different cultures. One of her famous paintings is Simultaneous Contrast, 1912 " reveals an interest in the dynamics of surface design which then became her primary concern" ( Chadwick, 261).

                                                Sonia Delaunay Simultaneous Contrast 1912
http://paintings-art-picture.com/paintings/archives/1618/sonia-delaunay-terk-simultaneous-contrasts-1913

However, Delaunay's passion for painting was given away for the interest of her husband as many women do today. Chadwick quotes Sonia words " From the day we started living together, I played second fiddle and I never put myself first until the 1950s"(p.261).

            Delaunay was a fantastic designer. Women wore her designs and she wore them as well. Chadwick points out about Delaunay " dissatisfied with the inherently static qualities of painting as a medium, during the Summer of 1931 Delaunay began to make simultaneously dresses, in reaction against of drabness of current fashion"(262). At that time, Women showed a type of independence. Liberation was a new formed to express their freedom of their body, expression and motion. Women could wear something shorter, completely different from 20 years earlier. Women used to wear corsets, long dresses, and even the way how they were supposed to walked was restricted. Moreover, women were supposed to act in a certain way at that time. However, things started to change about their clothes which became more comfortable for women. Paris was the center of fashion and took a lead in this new concept of women. There was definitively a  transformation in the image of women. During the First World War when all of the men were to war women began to work in factories and other places.There was a type of accommodation in women clothing especially now that women need to run around. There was a need for something loose and comfortable to have more flexibility. There was a emerge for the production of fashion and all the things that women like to buy. Chadwick quoted " Russian art in the years before the Revolution of 1917 developed along two broad paths. While some artist worked primarily in two dimensions, others emphasized construction, texture, and design" (264). By that time  the artist were influenced by" Nepromitivism, Cubofuturism, Rayonism, Suprematism, and Constructuvism" (Chadwick, 264).

               Delaunay became a successful business women. In Paris, she produced fashion designs, accessory designs and expanded to textile designs. She also gives space between the colors where the abstract of light is present. Before the first world war, there was the phenomenon of  made of choreographic that included folk dances. She has a friends who was her favorite designer from the Ballet Russe in Paris who incorporated colors and patterns. Delaunay had a beautiful house whose interior was design by her. She even made a baby quilt for her son. This was Delaunay's " first piece of decorative art, and first completely abstract work " (Chadwick, 260).

Sonia Delaunay Couverture 1911 

http://theslideprojector.com/art6/art6summer/art6lecture11.html

 The ideal of quilt let Sonia to get to abstraction. She presented in her work abstracts of light. Her husband was also painting in this period and became famous. The both were working in the same time. They are working with intense colors. However, Sonia liked to experiment with her work. Instead of work with black that was a representation at the begining of the First World War she decided to work with bright colors.  Sonia and her husband traveled. After the Russian Revolution took place and she lost all of her income. They were in Spain broke by that time. She opened a boutique in Madrid and was selling objects. She met new some aristocrats who she was able to sell her work. Delaunay  made the costume for Cleopatra for the "Diaghilev's Ballets Russes" in Paris.

 Sonia Delaunay costume for Cleopatre with Chernichova in the title-role,1918.

http://zolotoivek.tumblr.com/post/17842894967/lyubov-tchernicheva-wearing-a-costume-designed-by

This was an important event for Delaunay. Scarves were important in her work ,too. There was a tremendous rate for scarves. There was a mode from open flat surfaces as a fashion form. Even dresses were made of scarves. There was charity events for funded raiser for the Russian refuges were Sonia Delaunay joined and she was actually ask to do the fashion for the funding raised ( Chadwick 260-278). 

              In overall, Sonia Delaunay showed to be a brave women and even though she put her passion for painting away for her husband's benefit she continued later on as many women did in the past decades and still do up until today. Women sacrificed everything for the wealth of the family as is dictate for the society. However, Delaunay became successful and her loved for colors and beautiful designs carried the image of the " New Women". (Chadwick, 278). This led Delaunay to become a famous fashion icon for this 21th century.

Work cited:

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. New York, NY: Thames & Hudson Inc., 1990.

The Guerilla Girls. The Guerrila Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York,                        NY:  Penguin Books, 1998.