Sonia Delaunay (1885 - 1979). 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. Her work in modern design included the concepts of geometric abstraction, and the integration of furniture, fabrics, wall coverings, and clothing into her art practice. 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 Sofia Ilinitchna Stern, or Sarah Elievna Stern was born youngest of three children on 14 November 1885 in Hradyzk, or in Odesa, both in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, to poor Jewish parents. Her father was foreman of a nail factory. At five she was orphaned and moved to Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, where she was cared for by her mother's brother, Henri Terk. Henri, a successful and affluent lawyer, and his wife Anna wanted to adopt her but her mother would not allow it. Finally in 1890 she was adopted by the Terks. She assumed the name Sonia Terk and received a privileged upbringing with the Terks. They spent their summers in Finland and travelled widely in Europe, introducing Sonia to art museums and galleries. When she was 16, she attended a well-regarded secondary school in St. Petersburg, where her skill at drawing was noted by her teacher. When she was 18, at her teacher's suggestion, she was sent to art school in Germany where she attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe. She studied in Germany until 1905 and then moved to Paris. When she arrived in Paris she enrolled at the Académie de La Palette in Montparnasse. Unhappy with the mode of teaching, which she thought was too critical, she spent less time at the Académie and more time in galleries around Paris. Her own work during this period was strongly influenced by the art she was viewing including the post-impressionist art of Van Gogh, Gauguin and Henri Rousseau and the Fauves including Matisse and Derain. In 1908 she entered into a marriage of convenience with German art dealer and gallery owner Wilhelm Uhde, allowing her access to her dowery, and giving Uhde cover for his homosexuality. Sonia Terk gained entrance into the art world via exhibitions at Uhde's gallery and benefited from his connections. Comtesse de Rose, mother of Robert Delaunay, was a regular visitor to Uhde's gallery, sometimes accompanied by her son. Sonia Terk met Robert Delaunay in early 1909. They became lovers in April of that year and it was decided that she and Uhde should divorce. The divorce was finalised in August 1910. Sonia was pregnant and she and Robert married on 15 November 1910. Their son Charles was born on 18 January 1911. They were supported by an allowance sent from Sonia's aunt in St. Petersburg. Sonia said about Robert: In Robert Delaunay I found a poet. A poet who wrote not with words but with colours. The last section of La prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France, 1913 In 1911, Sonia Delaunay made a patchwork quilt for Charles's crib, which is now in the collection of the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris. This quilt was created spontaneously and uses geometry and colour. About 1911 I had the idea of making for my son, who had just been born, a blanket composed of bits of fabric like those I had seen in the houses of Ukrainian peasants. When it was finished, the arrangement of the pieces of material seemed to me to evoke cubist conceptions and we then tried to apply the same process to other objects and paintings. Sonia Delaunay Contemporary art critics recognize this as the point where she moved away from perspective and naturalism in her art. Around the same time, cubist works were being shown in Paris and Robert had been studying the colour theories of Michel Eugène Chevreul; they called their experiments with colour in art and design simultanéisme. Simultaneous design occurs when one design, when placed next to another, affects both; this is similar to the theory of colours in which primary colour dots placed next to each other are mixed by the eye and affect each other. Sonia's first large-scale painting in this style was Bal Bullier, a painting known for both its use of colour and movement.