Sonia Delaunay was a French artist born to Jewish parents, who spent most of her working life in Paris. She was born in the Russian Empire, now Ukraine, and was formally trained in Russia and Germany, before moving to France and expanding her practice to include textile, fashion, and set design. She was part of the School of Paris and co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes, with her husband Robert Delaunay and others. She was the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre in 1964, and in 1975 was named an officer of the French Legion of Honor.
Sonia Terk, c.1912
Sonia Delaunay, 1914, Prismes électriques, oil on canvas, 250 x 250 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Sonia Delaunay, Rythme, 1938, oil on canvas, 182 x 149 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris
The last section of La prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France, 1913
The School of Paris refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century.
André Warnod, Les Berceaux de la jeune peinture (1925). Cover illustration by Amedeo Modigliani
Raoul Dufy, Regatta at Cowes, 1934, Washington D.C. National Gallery of Art
Marc Chagall, The Fiddler, 1912–13
Sonia Delaunay, Rythme, 1938
