Sonia Delaunay (1884-1979)

Jean-Louis Delaunay and Richard Riss have confirmed the authenticity of this work.

The present work belongs to the series Contrastes simultanés that Sonia Delaunay began in 1912. Executed in 1913, it is one of the last of the series dating from the period when the artist was beginning to combine her simultaneous theories of colour with the linguistic influence of her new friend and associate, the poet Blaise Cendars. The title of the series derives from M.E. Chevreul's treatise on colour, De la Loi du contraste simultan Contrastes Simultané des couleurs, but these works are also, in some ways closely related to the exploratory forms of her husband Robert's series Formes circulaires. For Sonia Delaunay, the merit of the Contrastes simultanés series lay in 'the pure colours becoming planes and opposing each other by simultaneous contrasts [creating] for the first time new constructed forms not through chiaroscuro but through the depth of colour itself' (S. Delaunay, Programme du théâtre des Champs-Elysées, 1926-1927).