Rayonist Composition 1957. by Sonia Delaunay, 1885-1979

Sonia Delaunay, 1885-1979
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Rayonist Composition 1957.

Original screenprint in six colours. 1957. Signed and dated in pencil. Numbered in pencil from the edition of 100 (43/100). Probably printed at the Arcay Studio, Paris 1957.
Note: Delaunay's prints from the 1950's are rare.

Brilliant impression with very fresh colours. On pale cream medium-stiff wove paper. Generally excellent condition with a remarkably unrubbed surface. Full margins. Sheet: 27 5/8 x 19 5/8ins. Image: 24 x 15 3/4ins (610x400mm)

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The arrangements of brilliant colours and quasi-geometric forms which have come to be seen as the archetypal expression of Sonia Delaunay?s art reached a peak of inspiration during the very end of the 1940?s and in the 1950?s. However very few of her prints were made before the mid 1960?s. Those which date from the key period of the 50?s, as here, are rare.

When Sonia married Robert Delaunay in 1910 he was in the early stages of formulating his concepts of rhythmic colour abstraction. His treatment of the abstract forms in his work at this date were still very much influenced by Cubism, and to an extent by Futurism. It was to this combination of ideas that Sonia Delaunay brought her particularly rhythmic and lyrical sense of colour and shape. Over the next decade they moved the emphasis from cubist form to the arrangement of quasi-geometric blocks of colour with which they virtually ?sculpted? the picture space. They came to call this Simultanéism or Orphisme, and Sonia played a key role in its development both through painting and in particular through her cut-out pasted-paper collages. In the immediate post-war years she translated these ideas into paintings, and increasingly into prints.

The brilliant primary colours and the ?sculpting? of the picture space through the density contrasts of the colour shapes which typify Delaunay?s finest mature work are seen to very fine effect in this rare 1950?s lithograph.