Robert Delaunay | |
|---|---|
 Robert Delaunay | |
| Born | Robert-Victor-Felix Delaunay 12 April 1885 Paris, France |
| Died | 25 October 1941(1941-10-25) (aged 56) Montpellier, France |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Divisionism,Cubism,Orphism,Abstract art,School of Paris |
| Signature | |
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Robert Delaunay (French:[ʁɔbɛʁdəlonɛ]; 12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist of theSchool of Paris movement;[1] who, with his wifeSonia Delaunay and others, co-founded theOrphismart movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were moreabstract. His key influence related to the bold use of colour and a clear love of experimentation with both depth andtone.
From 1912 to 1914, Delaunay's nonfigurative paintings focused on color. His early paintings were deeply rooted inNeoimpressionism which he abandoned later. His writings on color, which were influenced by scientists and theoreticians, were largely intuitive and could sometimes be random statements based on the belief that color was a thing in itself, with its own powers of expression and form. He believed that painting was a purely visual art that depended on intellectual elements, and perception was in the impact of colored light on the eye.[2]
His theories about color and light influenced many artists such asStanton Macdonald-Wright,Morgan Russell,Patrick Henry Bruce,Der Blaue Reiter,August Macke,Franz Marc,Paul Klee,Thomas Hart Benton,Lyonel Feininger and dozens more. The poet and art criticGuillaume Apollinaire was also influenced by Delaunay's theories of color and quoted from them to explainOrphism, which he had named.[2]
Robert Delaunay was born inParis, the son of George Delaunay andCountess Berthe Félicie de Rose. While he was a child, Delaunay's parents divorced, and he was raised by his mother's sister Marie and her husband Charles Damour, in La Ronchère nearBourges. When he failed his final exam and said he wanted to become a painter, his uncle in 1902 sent him to Ronsin'satelier to studyDecorative Arts in theBelleville district of Paris.[3]
At age 19, Delaunay left Ronsin to focus entirely on painting and contributed six works to theSalon des Indépendants in 1904.[4] He traveled toBrittany, where he was influenced by thegroup of Pont-Aven; and, in 1906, he contributed works he painted in Brittany to the 22nd Salon des Indépendants, where he met "Le Douanier"Henri Rousseau.[4]
Delaunay formed a close friendship at this time withJean Metzinger, with whom he shared an exhibition at a gallery run byBerthe Weill early in 1907. The two of them were singled out by the art criticLouis Vauxcelles in 1907 asDivisionists who used large, mosaic-like 'cubes' to construct small but highly symbolic compositions.[5]
Robert Herbert writes: "Metzinger'sNeo-Impressionist period was somewhat longer than that of his close friend Delaunay... The height of his Neo-Impressionist work was in 1906 and 1907, when he and Delaunay did portraits of each other (Art market, London, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) in prominent rectangles of pigment. (In the sky ofCoucher de soleil no. 1, 1906–07, Collection Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, is the solar disk which Delaunay was later to make into a personal emblem)."[6] Herbert describes the vibrating image of the sun in Metzinger's painting, and so too of Delaunay'sPaysage au disque (1906–07), as "an homage to the decomposition of spectral light that lay at the heart of Neo-Impressionist color theory..."[7]
Metzinger, followed closely by Delaunay—the two often painting together in 1906 and 1907—would develop a new sub-style of Neo-Impressionism that had great significance shortly thereafter within the context of their Cubist works.Piet Mondrian developed a similar mosaic-like Divisionist technique circa 1909. TheFuturists later (1909–1916) would incorporate the style, under the influence ofGino Severini's Parisian works (from 1907 onward), into their dynamic paintings and sculpture.[6]
In 1908, after a term in the military working as a regimental librarian, he met fellow artistSonia Terk; at the time she was married to a German art dealer whom she would soon divorce. In 1909, Delaunay began to paint a series of studies of the city of Paris and theEiffel Tower, theEiffel Tower series.
The following year, he married Terk, and, together with a few others, they founded theOrphism art movement. The couple settled in a studio apartment in Paris, where their sonCharles was born in January 1911. The same year, at the invitation ofWassily Kandinsky, Delaunay joined The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter), aMunich-based group of artists. Delaunay was also successful in Germany, Switzerland, and Russia. He participated in the first Blaue Reiter exhibition in Munich and sold four works. Delaunay's paintings encouraged an enthusiastic response with Blaue Reiter. The Blaue Reiter connections led to the article byErwin von Busse titled "Robert Delaunay's Methods of Composition", which appeared in the 1912Blaue Reiter Almanac.[11] Delaunay would go to exhibit in February of that year, in the second Blaue Reiter exhibition in Munich andKnave of Diamonds in Moscow.
"This happened in 1912. Cubism was in full force. I made paintings that seemed like prisms compared to the Cubism my fellow artists were producing. I was the heretic of Cubism. I had great arguments with my comrades who banned color from their palette, depriving it of all elemental mobility. I was accused of returning to Impressionism, of making decorative paintings, etc.… I felt I had almost reached my goal."[13]
1912 was a turning point for Delaunay. On 13 March his first major exhibition in Paris closed after two weeks at theGalerie Barbazanges. The exhibition, organized by the French mathematician and actuaryMaurice Princet, showed forty-six works from his early 1906-07 Divisionist period to hisProto-Cubist and Cubist Eiffel Tower paintings from 1909 to 1912. Apollinaire praised those works of the exhibition and proclaimed Delaunay as "an artist who has a monumental vision of the world."
In the 23 March 1912 issue of the satirical magazineL'Assiette au Beurre, the first published suggestion that Delaunay had broken with this group of Cubists appeared, in James Burkley's review of the Salon des Indépendants. Burkley wrote, "The "Cubists", who occupied only a room, have multiplied. Their leaders, Picasso and Braque, have not participated in their grouping, and Delaunay, commonly labeled a Cubist, has wished to isolate himself and declares he has nothing in common with Metzinger or Le Fauconnier."[14]
With Apollinaire, Delaunay traveled to Berlin in January 1913 for an exhibition of his work atGalerie Der Sturm. On their way back to Paris, the two stayed withAugust Macke inBonn, where Macke introduced them toMax Ernst.[15] When his paintingLa ville de Paris was rejected by theArmory Show as being too big[16] he instructedSamuel Halpert to remove all his works from the show.[4]
At the outbreak of theFirst World War in 1914 Sonia and Robert were staying inFontarabie in Spain. They decided not to return to France and settled inMadrid. In August 1915 they moved to Portugal where they shared a home withSamuel Halpert andEduardo Viana.[17] With Viana and their friendsAmadeo de Souza Cardoso (whom the Delaunays had already met in Paris) andJosé de Almada Negreiros they discussed an artistic partnership.[4][18] First declared adeserter, Robert was declared unfit for military duty at the French consulate inVigo on 23 June 1916.[4]
TheRussian Revolution brought an end to the financial support Sonia received from her family in Russia, and a different source of income was needed. In 1917 the Delaunays metSergei Diaghilev in Madrid. Robert designed the stage for his production ofCleopatra (costume design bySonia Delaunay). Robert Delaunay illustratesTour Eiffel forVicente Huidobro.[4]
Paul Poiret refused a business partnership with Sonia in 1920, citing as one of the reasons her marriage to a deserter.[19] TheDer Sturm gallery inBerlin showed works by Sonia and Robert from their Portuguese period the same year.[4][20]
After the war, in 1921, Robert and Sonia Delaunay returned to Paris. Robert Delaunay continued to work in both figurative and abstract themes, with a brief stint intoSurrealism. He metAndré Breton andTristan Tzara, who introduced him to bothDadaists and Surrealists.[22] During the1937 World Fair in Paris, Delaunay participated in the design of the railway and air travel pavilions.
WhenWorld War II erupted, the Delaunays moved to theAuvergne region, in an effort to avoid the invadingGerman forces. Suffering from cancer, Delaunay was unable to endure being moved around, and his health deteriorated. He died of cancer on 25 October 1941 inMontpellier at the age of 56. His body was reburied in 1952 inGambais.[4]
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The main collection of Robert Delaunay's works is in theMusée National d'Art Moderne[23] in Paris but his work also can be found in museums and public collections around the world such as the following:
TheMusée National d'Art Moderne in Paris,theMusée d'Art Moderne de Paris,theNeue Nationalgalerie inBerlin,theBilbao Fine Arts Museum (Spain),Kunstmuseum Basel (Switzerland),theNational Galleries of Scotland,theNew Art Gallery (Walsall, England),Palazzo Cavour (Turin, Italy),thePeggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice),National Museum of Serbia,Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, The Netherlands),Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille (France). Tate (London, England)
TheAlbright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, New York),theArt Institute of Chicago,theColumbus Museum of Art,theBerkeley Art Museum,theMinneapolis Institute of Arts,theFine Arts Museums of San Francisco,theFrances Lehman Loeb Art Center atVassar College (Poughkeepsie, New York), theGuggenheim Museum (New York City),theHonolulu Museum of Art,theMuseum of Modern Art (New York City),theNational Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.),theDallas Museum of Art (Dallas, TX),theSan Diego Museum of Art,thePhiladelphia Museum of Art,and theSaint Louis Art Museum(Saint Louis, MO)
TheNational Gallery of Victoria (Australia),theAichi Prefectural Museum of Art (Japan).
