Colour stencil with dense gouache inks on velin paper. Unsigned and unnumbered with printed title-heading designed by Delaunay, upper left, as issued. Paper Size: 12.625 x 9.625 inches. Excellent condition. Reference: Delaunay, Sonia. Sonia Delaunay Patterns and Designs in Full Color. Dover Publications, Inc., 1989, page 1. Callu, Florence, et al. Sonia et Robert Delaunay: BibliotheQue Nationale, [Paris, 15 deCembre 1977-29 Janvier 1978]. Bibliotheque nationale, 1977, illustration number 456. Notes: From the folio, Compositions, couleurs, idees: Sonia Delaunay, 1930. Compositions conceived and created 1926-28 and issued as an album of separate loose sheets. Published and printed by Editions d'Art, Charles Moreau, Editeur, Paris, 1930. Excerpted from the volume, Sonia Delaunay Patterns and Designs in Full Color, Sonia Delaunay: Ses Peintures, Ses Objets, Ses Tissus Simultanes, Ses Modes (pp. 1-20), was published by Librairie des Arts Decoratifs, Paris [1925]). In addition to the plates by Delaunay, it contained poems by Joseph Delteil, Blaise Cendrars, Tristan Tzara and Philippe Soupault. In a preface, the painter and writer Andre Lhote makes the point that, with a few exceptions, the designs use no florals or other identifiable motif, the representation of nature being replaced by an interplay of abstract elements in a pure state, Forms are organized according to an casily perceived thythm. (The Delaunays frequently thought of their art in musical terms.) In this treatment, according to Lhote, everyday objects offer the artist the greatest challenge. In fact, Sonia Delaunay devoted her talents to all sorts of designs, from furniture and pottery to bookbindings and clothing. Her fashions were much in demand, not so much for originality of silhouette or construction as for inventive-ness of patterning and use of fabric. Lhote says of these designs: "In an epoch when fashion sometimes so indiscrectly unveils the form, it is necessary that the bit of fabric used to cover it be decorated in the most abstract manner, so that the eye is for an instant attracted by the figures different from those born in intimacy." (Translation by H. C. Perleberg:) Compositions, Couleurs, Idees (pp. 21-60) was published by Editions d'Art Charles Moreau, Paris [1930]. The plates reveal Sonia Delaunay's further explorations with abstraction, playing color against color and form against form. SONIA DELAUNAY (1885-1979) was a French artist born to Jewish parents, who spent most of her working life in Paris. She was born in the Russian Empire, now Ukraine, and was formally trained in Russia and Germany, before moving to France and expanding her practice to include textile, fashion, and set design. She was part of the School of Paris and co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes, with her husband Robert Delaunay and others. She was the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre in 1964, and in 1975 was named an officer of the French Legion of Honor. She was in the milieu of Picasso, Braque, and Matisse.

Excellent condition