Sonia Delaunay

In 1912 Sonia Delaunay designed her first dress, the robe simultanée, a gown made of pink, scarlet, blue and orange sections, which she wore to dance the tango with her husband Robert Delaunay at the fashionable Bal Bullier. She painted Bal Bullier in 1912/1913 which offers an excellent example of Orphism, the expressive combination of color and form that dominated much of both of their career. Her comment is based on her writings ”it’s just that I see color contrasts everywhere in life [...] I do it all for the fun of it” and that she “lived her art”. 

In 1912, Paul Klee came to France and saw works by the Delaunays and later worked on translating some writings of Robert in German. He was influenced by their approach and his comment is based on his quote “Color has taken possession of me”

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Robert Delaunay

The Eiffel Tower representing modernism inspired Robert Delaunay and he painted a series between 1909 and 1928. The first one was a celebration of his engagement with Sonia who loved the tower too. The Red Eiffel tower was painted in 1911/1912. 1912 was a turning point for Robert: in March he had his first major exhibition in Paris with works from his early Impressionist works to his Cubist Eiffel Tower paintings. It was commented that he broke away from cubism through his use of color rejected by other cubist artists.

Art Critic Guillaume Apollinaire argued: ‘If Cubism is dead, long live Orphism’’ and later that the avant garde painters of that time ‘have achieved a more internalized, more popular and more poetic vision of the universe and of life’.

In 1911 Kandisky had invited Robert to join the The Blue Rider, a Munich-based group of artists and his comment is based on his quote “That is beautiful which is produced by the inner need, which springs from the soul.”

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Sources : 

Sonia Delaunay: The Life of an Artist, 1995. 

The New Art of Color. 1978. Arthur A. Cohen

The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1964

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