Sonia Delaunay

Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jeanne de FranceOne of the most famous and earliest artists’ books is Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jeanne de France, with a poem by Blaise Cendrars and pochoir illustration by Sonia Delaunay from 1913. I got to see a copy, with all its spectacular color, once at a museum in San Francisco. (See a much larger image here.)
I’ve been working on a mobile recently, which I thought I might pochoir, and I remembered Delaunay’s piece. Turns out there was a recent exhibit of her work at the Copper Hewitt in NYC. The description of the exhibit says, in part, “a trademark of Delaunay’s work is the sense of movement and rhythm created by the simultaneous contrasts of certain colors.” Seems like a good place to look for inspiration for a moving piece like a mobile! Since the exhibit is closed and I’m not in NYC, I had to settle for these happy pictures of Delaunay’s use of color.

2 thoughts on “Sonia Delaunay”

  1. I looooooove Sonia Delaunay’s work. Got to see a copy of Prose du Transsiberien at a big Surrealism exhibit at the Guggenheim back in 1999, I think — it was one of the things that really pushed me toward making artists’ books. So good to see it again.

    Can’t wait to see photos of the mobile you’re working on!

  2. I too admire her work. Thanks for sharing this. Beautiful how the words are set off by the colors.

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