Delaunay Design

Abstract

In 1924 Sonia Delaunay began commercial production of printed textiles under her own label.1 These textile designs in gouache on paper resembled more closely her first medium—painting—than had appliqué, embroidery, stenciling, and ceramic decoration, the mainstays of her prior design production. This new undertaking signaled not only an expansion, but a rationalization of her two-dimensional patterns in the total production of her clothing, accessories, and interior design. In the same year she exhibited in the decorative arts section of the Paris Salon d'Automne. Her display was a mock store window of fabrics draped over a mechanism designed by her husband, Robert Delaunay.2 The display machine caused the textiles to move continually up and down on roller tracks, dramatizing the oppositions of the contrasting colors. It also suggested their use in real life—the play of patterns that move across a human body clothed in her textiles or across one of her personally designed spaces.

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