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Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay

Above: Rythme Coloré (Colored Rhythm), 1946, Oil on canvas, private collection, © L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623; Photo: © private collection

A new exhibition opens today at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York: Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay. Delaunay was an abstract painter, colorist and textile designer who lent her talents to many industries.

As the first major US museum exhibition of Delaunay’s work in 30 years, the exhibition celebrates Delaunay’s textiles and fashion contributions and will include more than 300 works on view are garments and textiles, with correlating designs, fashion illustrations and period photographs.


Abstract Diagonal Composition no. 1733, 1925, gouache on paper, private collection, © L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623; Photo: © private collection


Still photo from the film Le P’tit Parigot, written by Paul Cartoux, Directed by René Le Somptier, 1926, collection of Antoine Blanchette, © L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623


Bathing suit (tunic), 1924–25, silk embroidery on wool jersey, Musée de l’Impression sur Étoffes, Mulhouse, 980.629.1 © L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623


Model wearing swimsuit, 1929, Photographed by Luigi Diaz for Presse Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, © L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623

The exhibition will begin with her “poem dresses” of the 1910s, an experimental series of designs created in an attempt to explore the relationship between words, body, and movement. In the second portion of the exhibition highlights her work for the Metz & Co department store in Amsterdam — from the initial sketch through the finished product.


Variation on Design 1355, 1934, gouache on paper, private collection, © L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623, Photo: © private collection


Tissu simultané no. 186, 1926, block-printed cotton, Musée de l’Impression sur Étoffes, Mulhouse, 980.549.17, © L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623


Sonia Delaunay in her studio at boulevard Malesherbes, Paris, France, 1925, photographed by Germaine Krull (German, 1897–1985), Bibliothèque Nationale de France, © L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623

What: Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay
When: March 18, 2011 – June 5, 2011
Where: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue, New York City

Jaime Derringer, Founder + Executive Editor of Design Milk, is a Jersey girl living in SoCal. She dreams about funky, artistic jewelry + having enough free time to enjoy some of her favorite things—running, reading, making music, and drawing.