Her first show was in 1908; she married Robert Delaunay in 1910. She did not exhibit her paintings again in any number until 1953, twelve years after her husband's death. Although she would not compete with her husband, Sonia painted throughout her life. Delaunay was not regarded as a great artist, but she was important. Her work was dismissed as being too decorative; but she did not diminish painting, she elevated the decorative arts. With her husband, she developed a style, sometimes called orphism, that was a spin-off of cubism. She was part of the radical drive to purify and elevate art through abstraction. At the same time, she helped direct art toward the gently decorative, a natural development, since decoration is itself generally abstract. She worked continually throughout her long life in many artistic
media beside painting. From the creation of a pieced quilt
for her son in which she synthesized Russian peasant blanket
design with Cubism, she moved on to collage, bookbinding, book
illustration and eventually, to costume and theatre design,
fashion design and decorative arts. She died in Paris in 1979
at the age of ninety-four. |
