SONIA DELAUNAY AT THE TATE MODERN

Sonia Delaunay at the Tate Modern: 15 April to 9 August 2015

This is a brief summary of two articles that were published in the Guardian newspaper on 28 March and on 14 April 2015.  Both articles previewed the retrospective exhibition of work by Sonia Delaunay which opened at the Tate Modern on 15 April and which runs until 9 August.

The first article to be published was by Kathleen Jamie and was entitled ‘The dance goes on’.

The second article to be published was by Adrian Searle and was entitled ‘Fascinating rhythms’.

Sonia Delaunay at the Tate Modern: 15 April to 9 August

Kathleen Jamie on Sonia Delaunay

The article by Kathleen Jamie describes Sonia Delaunay’s origin in Odessa, Ukraine, and the move that she made as a child to live with her uncle and aunt in St.Petersburg.  Sonia Delaunay was Jewish. 

Sonia Delaunay married – as a convenience – Wilhelm Uhde, who was homosexual.  This enabled Sonia to leave Russia and settle in Paris.  The marriage ended in divorce, and in 1910 Sonia and Robert Delaunay married and became ‘quite the avant-garde power couple’.

Delaunay was painting before she left Russia: her works appear to have been influenced by Gauguin.  She worked figuratively and in abstraction. 

The Delaunays counted as friends Kandinsky and Chagall, and the poets Apollinaire and Cendras. 

The blanket that Sonia Delaunay stitched for her young son in 1911 is included in the show: it indicates her move from figurative work to abstraction; it shows Russian folk art merging with 20^th Century Paris.  The blanket is an early example of Sonia Delaunay’s ‘simultane’ style. 

Sonia worked increasingly in needlework – maybe to give her husband space to paint.  Her style showed Russian folk art influences.  The ‘simultane’ style - which both Sonia and Robert practised - juxtaposed contrasting colours and shapes to create lively movement and rhythm. 

The Delaunays’ easy movement in the avant garde of the arts was stopped by the Russian Revolution.  This ended Sonia’s income from property that she had owned in St.Petersburg.  Sonia’s needlework skills came to the fore and she designed ballet costumes and sold textiles and clothing, and had her own fashion house – ‘Sonia’.

The question is posed: Sonia’s aesthetic was unvarying but her works became dominated by marketing and commerce, so ‘is it art, or design, or both at once?’  Kathleen Jamie also expresses the question by referring to the ‘simultane’ motif of opposites placed alongside each other to make a unified and attractive whole.  Jamie suggests that Sonia Delaunay was engaged in ‘performance art’.

The Nazi occupation forced Sonia and Robert to move to the south of France.  Robert Delaunay died in 1941 and Sonia took up painting again in an abstract style.

Sonia died in 1979.

An essay in the exhibition catalogue by Griselda Pollock presents Sonia Delaunay as a feminist pioneer whose significance became lost as the art history of the 20^th Century came to be written in the 1950s by ‘masculinist fogeys’.  Sonia Delaunay ‘moved fluidly between art and design’ and this reduced her perceived significance in comparison with her painter husband.  The task now is to see Sonia’s works fully in their own light.

Sonia Delaunay is quoted as having said: ‘Abstract art is only important if it is the endless rhythm where the very ancient and the distant future meet’.

Adrian Searle on Sonia Delaunay

Adrian Searle also describes Sonia Delaunay’s origins in Ukraine and Russia and her move to Paris.  Searle refers to Wilhelm Uhde’s role as an art critic and dealer, who knew Picasso.  Uhde showed the work of Henri Rousseau and gave Sonia an exhibition.

Searle praises the Tate Modern exhibition: it originated in Paris. 

Sonia Delaunay is described as having ‘sought to extend art into the everyday and the broader material culture’.  Her clothes were ‘paintings to be worn’.