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ROBERT DELAUNAY (French) Gouache on paper

Robert Delaunay (French, 1885 - 1941)

Rythme.

Gouache on paper. c1930-34. Signed in pencil, lower left. 7 15/16 x 5 7/16 in. (202 x 138 mm). Sheet Size: 8 3/4 x 5 15/16 in. (222 x 151 mm). Light soiling. Robert Delaunay was born in Paris in 1885. By the age of eighteen, he was producing mature imagery in a style based principally on impressionism. He met the Russsian artist Sonia Terk in 1908 and they married in 1910. He adopted from Terk, now Sonia Delaunay, an impetus for bright color. Delaunay joined Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider)—a Munich-based group of abstract artists—in 1911, at the invitation of Wassily Kandinsky, and his work progressed steadily toward abstraction, employing patterned forms and increasingly vivid colors to describe vision, movement, rhythm—the luminous essence of nature. In 1912, Delaunay produced a series of paintings in which brightly colored disks interact to suggest movement and space. He regarded his earlier work as deconstructive, and sought a manner by which to present his subject without fragmenting it. Delaunay would continue to experiment with halos and bright colors for the rest of his career. His last major works, depicting vertical and horizontal stacks of halos, are often titled "Rhythm without End."