Sonia Delaunay-Terk

Born: 1885, Gradizhsk (Poltava Province)/Odessa
Died: 1979, Paris

Painter, designer. Born in Gradizhsk in Poltava Province or Odessa (1885). Studied in St Petersburg and under Ludwig Schmidt-Reutte in Karlsruhe (1903–04). Settled in Paris (1905), where she studied under Amédée Ozenfant, André Dunoyer de Segonzac and Edmond Aman-Jean at the Académie de la Palette. Married Robert Delaunay (1910). Worked with her husband in a studio on Rue des Grand Augustins (1910–35). Developed the theory of Simultanism and the principles of Orphism. Painted abstract pictures based on colour relations, largely consisting of stripes and circular or spiral patches of colour. Collaborated with Cherez (1923), helped to design the sets for a production of Tristan Tzara’s play Le coeur à barbe and Soirée du Coeur à barbe (1923). Designed fabrics for silk mills in Lyon (early 1920s). Opened a fashion atelier (1924). Awarded the Légion d’honneur (1957), grand prix at the Salon International de Cannes (1969) and the gold medal of the city of Paris (1973). Died in Paris (1979). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1908). Contributed to the Salon d’Automne (1913), Salon des Indépendants (1914), Galerie der Sturm in Berlin (1913), exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1938), Les Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev at the Musée des Arts décoratifs (1939), Russian Artists of the École de Paris (1960, 1961), Russian Avant-Garde 1905–25 (1969), Pioneers of Abstract Art (1971), Russian View (1974) and one-woman shows in Stockholm (1916), Bilbao (1919), Galerie der Sturm in Berlin (1920, 1921), Paris (1953, 1958–62), Lyon, Rome, Milan, Turin, London, New York, Zurich, Geneva and Germany.

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