Tate Modern hosts works by abstract artist Sonia Delaunay

Δημοσιεύθηκε: 14 Απριλίου 2015 - 14:23

Works by Sonia Delaunay never before seen in the UK go on show on Wednesday at Tate Modern, in the first British retrospective of the pioneering abstract artist.

In a prolific career spanning most of the 20th century, Delaunay moved from early figurative painting to the abstract whorls, interlocking zigzags and discs of contrasting colour for which she is best known.

Born in 1885 in Odessa, she experimented enthusiastically with a range of mediums including textiles, clothing, carpets, bookbindings, upholstery and mosaics, in work that predates the Bauhaus movement of the 1920s and 1930s. Designing for the fashion, film and theatre world, her commissions included costumes for Sergei Diaghilev, the founder of the avant-garde Ballets Russes.

Juliet Bingham, Tate Modern curator of international art, said: "She really believed in bringing art into the everyday - she was the living embodiment of her work, wearing her outfits at public events and creating her apartment as a three-dimensional mise-en-scene."

Moving to Paris in 1906, she developed the ideas of "simultaneism" with her husband Robert Delaunay, in which she juxtaposed different patches of colour using a limited palette.

Moving to Spain and Portugal during the first world war, Delaunay demonstrated a flair for business, opening a boutique in Madrid in 1918 and later an atelier in Paris. These wove her abstract designs into silks, curtains, hats, shoes and swimming costumes for an international market, selling to department stores such as Liberty of London and Metz & Co in Amsterdam. The Hollywood star Gloria Swanson was one client; others were the wives of architects Erno Goldfinger and Walter Gropius.

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>Delaunay was a skilled networker, holding Sunday soirees in her Paris apartment and forming links with the movements of the day, such as the Dadaists or Group Espace. She was generous with younger artists: one room in the Tate Modern show features three monumental murals of an aeroplane engine, a propeller and a dashboard, painted for the Paris international expo of 1937. In the teeth of an economic slump, Delaunay used the commission to provide employment for out-of-work artists.

After her husband Robert died in 1941 she began to turn her attention away from the business towards her abstract painting, moving towards a darker palette of colours and exhibiting her work in Europe and the US. She was recognised as an artist of major significance within her lifetime, becoming in 1964 the first female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre.

"She was a tenacious character - she worked for 60 years or more. She was bringing her vision to all these different forms in quite a unique and progressive way of working," Ms Bingham said.

The show is one of several featuring women artists this year: the Tate galleries alone are mounting dedicated exhibitions to Marlene Dumas, Barbara Hepworth, Leonora Carrington, Cathy Wilkes and Agnes Martin.

The EY Exhibition: Sonia Delaunay runs until August 9 at Tate Modern

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