Robert Delaunay

Robert Delaunay (1885-1941), French painter. For a few years immediately before World War I he was one of the most influential artists in Paris—a leading pioneer of abstract art. His later career was less distinguished.

Delaunay was born in Paris, where between 1902 and 1904 he trained as a theatrical scene painter; he was essentially self-taught as an artist. He first publicly exhibited his work in 1904. His style at this time was Impressionist; he was subsequently influenced by Neo-Impressionism, and by 1910 he was working in a highly personal Cubist idiom. He adopted the fragmented forms of Cubism but used rich colours instead of the muted browns and greys typical of the work of both Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso at this time, and rather than the usual static, intimate Cubist subjects (still lifes, landscapes, figures) he depicted scenes of modern city life. His work in this vein includes a series of powerful pictures of the Eiffel Tower, which he makes seem alive with a pulsating energy.

By the end of 1912 Delaunay had become the first French artist to produce completely abstract pictures, made up of vibrant arrangements of fragmented colour. His Windows series (1912) is widely recognized as one of the first examples of totally abstract art, an important landmark in modern art. The poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire coined the terms Orphism and Orphic Cubism to describe such pictures; in invoking the name of Orpheus, the famous poet and singer of Greek mythology, he indicated that Delaunay had introduced a new note of lyrical beauty into the austere Cubism of Braque and Picasso.

Various associates were grouped with Delaunay as Orphists, notably Fernand Léger and Francis Picabia, but the artist who was closest in style to him at this time was the Czech-born František Kupka , who had lived in Paris from about 1895. Delaunay's work was influential not only in France, but also in other countries, particularly Germany; at the invitation of Wassily Kandinsky he showed work in the first Blaue Reiter exhibition in 1911, Paul Klee visited him in Paris in 1912, and he had a one-man exhibition in Berlin in 1913.

During World War I, Delaunay lived in Spain and Portugal and after he returned to Paris in 1920 most of the inspiration went out of his work. However, he continued to be a well-known figure in the French art world. His love of rhythm and movement led to several series of paintings based on sporting events, such as Sprinters (1924-1926), and later culminated in dazzling abstract works focusing purely on rhythm, such as the Rhythms and Eternal Rhythms series. His later work also included two huge murals (destroyed) for the Paris World Fair of 1937.

Delaunay's wife, the Russian-born Sonia Delaunay Terk, was a painter and fashion designer.