Sonia Delaunay: Living Art
Waleria Dorogova and Laura Microulis, editors
A richly crafted tribute to the pioneering avant-garde artist, designer, and entrepreneur Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979), whose boundary-breaking approach is echoed in the volume’s interdisciplinary and inspired design. This catalogue sets a new standard for the study of Delaunay, eschewing traditional chronological structures to better showcase groundbreaking research unifying the artist’s timeless oeuvre across mediums. This publication demonstrates Delaunay’s innate versatility and willingness to create without material limitation using her unique language of light and color. Textiles, fashion, interiors, book art, and more are highlighted across twenty-six chapters by leading international scholars to give new insight into Delaunay’s strategies of self-promotion, entrepreneurial endeavors, legacy-building efforts, and vast network of collaborators. These in-depth analyses, including previously under-investigated material such as film, mosaics, tapestries, and interior design, offer a comprehensive perspective on Delaunay’s lifelong effort to unite art with life by harnessing the energy of technological advancement and the beauty of artisanal craftsmanship. Finally, an appendix provides a unique personal note—an epilogue by Patrick Raynaud (born 1946), the last living member of Delaunay’s atelier—as a touching firsthand account of the artist’s working practices toward the end of her life. The design, by award-winning book creator Irma Boom, embraces Sonia Delaunay’s own approach to layout and typography, rendering a book that unites past and present.
The exhibition Sonia Delaunay: Living Art is on view at Bard Graduate Center Gallery from February 23–July 7,2024.
Table of Contents
Director's Foreword
Susan Weber
Introduction
Waleria Dorogova and Laura Microulis
Note to the Reader
Chronology
A New Vision
1. Sonia Delaunay's Avant-Gardism
Rachel Silveri
2. A Life of Painting Color
Cécile Godefroy
Creation in Exile
3. Jewish Identity
Gail Levin
4. Another Exile: The Art of of Survival and the Survival of Art in Occupied France
Margarete Zimmermann
5. Being a Part of the "Other Russia"
Waleria Dorogova
6. Walk Like an Egyptian
Waleria Dorogova
La Vie Moderne
7. Des Soirées Bien Parisiennes: Film Projects
Hilde D'Haeyere and Steven Jacobs
8. Eclipising the Sun: La Prose du Transsibérien and Sonia Delaunay's Electric Alterity
Tamar Kharatishvili
9. Charles Delaunay and the Aesthetics of Jazz
Celeste Day Moore
10. Cars: Colors on the Move
Dirk Van Oost
11. When Color Meets Light: Luminous Posters
Ruth Hommelen
The Philosophy of Space
12. "The Poetry of a Room": Interior Design and Decoration
Marjan Sterckx and Werner Adriaenssens
13. Redefining the Interior: Sonia Delaunay's Concept of Dwelling
Kasia Stempniak
14. Sensibility and Ratio: Interiors for Georges Gersen
Waleria Dorogova
The Enterprise of Simultané
15. "C'est un Travail Noble": Fashion Design
Maude Bass-Krueger
16. Painting with Stitches: the Art of "Point du Jour" Embroidery
Noah Dubay
17. Sonia Delaunay and Jacques Heim: Fashion through the Prism of the Avant-Garde
Émile Hammen
18. Fabrics as Commerce and Artistic Medium
Waleria Dorogova
19. Robert Perrier's "Années Delaunay"
Waleria Dorogova
20. Textile Research or Laboratory of Abstraction?
Laurent Cotta
Infinite Exploration
21. The Books: Poetry of Words, Poetry of Colors
Christoph Benjamin Schulz
22. Tapestries: "A Play of Colored Wools"
Laura Microulis
23. Spirtuality and Stained Glass
Geoffrey Ripert
24. Mosaics: Inherently Simultaneous
Kaat Obbels
25. The ABC's of Color: Designing for Children
Waleria Dorogova
26. Expanding the Reach of Simultanism
Laura Microulis
Epilogue
27. Sonia et Moi
Patrick Raynaud
28. Sonia Delaunay Speaks
Interview Transcript from the Series Français de Notre Temps (1974)
Exhibition Checklist
Selected Bibliography
Contributing Authors
Index
Other Details
ISBN
9780300275766
Page count
540 | color illustrations throughout
Publication date
February 2024
Binding
Hardcover: paper over board
