Sonia Delaunay

Delaunay was Jewish by birth. Though native to Russia, she is sometimes cited as Russian-French since she spent so much of her life in France. Sonia married art dealer Wilhelm Uhde in 1908. They marriage ended in divorce two years later.

In 1910, she married Robert Delaunay. He was a fellow artist. She gave birth to Charles Delaunay a year later. He became a well-known expert on jazz music.

When World War I began, the Delaunays moved first to Spain and then to Portugal. They returned to Paris in 1921.

Sonia Delaunay was born in what is now the Ukraine. Her birth name was Sarah Stern. At the age of five, in 1905, she was adopted by her aunt and uncle and given their surname, Terk. They were wealthy and lived in St. Petersburg.

With her adopted parents, she traveled throughout Europe during her childhood and youth. This introduced her to many styles of art. She also learned to speak several languages.

In 1903, she studied art for a year at Karlsruhe ‘Fine Arts Academy’ in Germany. She went there on the recommendation of her drawing teacher.

In 1904, Sonia headed to Paris, where her developing artistic talent was influenced by the post-impressionists and fauvists. Still in Paris, the next year she studied print-making with Rudolf Grossman.

Perhaps even more important than her formal studies was the time she spent viewing art in the various galleries, especially the works of artists such as Van Gogh and Gauguin.

Her first solo artistic exhibition was held in 1908 at the ‘Montparnasse Gallery’. The exhibition was run by her first husband, Wilhelm Uhde.

Sonia's second husband, Robert Dulaunay, was a fellow artist. Together they explored the use of color in art, influenced by color theorist Michel-Eugene Chevruel.

Sonia and Robert Dulaunay helped to found ‘Orphism’, a school of abstract art that combined bold colors and geometric shapes and patterns. One of their main ideas involved ‘simultaneous design’, which focused on placing different designs next to each other to cause an effect by the juxtaposition.

Her 1912-1913 painting 'Bal Bullier' of a dance-hall in Paris is considered one of her major works. It combined color and movement.

In 1937, she and her husband Robert worked to decorate the ‘World Exhibition’ pavilion. It was located in Paris across from the Eiffel Tower.