1885–1941 · Cubism. Wikipedia
Robert Delaunay was a French artist of the School of Paris movement; who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract. His key influence related to the bold use of colour and a clear love of experimentation with both depth and tone.
Rhythms (French: Rythmes) is an oil on canvas painting by the French artist Robert Delaunay, from 1934. It is part of the collection of the Musée National d'Art Moderne, in Paris. The painting was inspired by the round shapes that marked the return of the artist to orphism and study of harmony in painting.
Champs de Mars: The Red Tower (French: Champs de Mars: La Tour Rouge) is an oil on canvas painting by the French painter Robert Delaunay, from 1911. It shows an orphic representation of the Eiffel Tower, in Paris. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago. Delaunay's painting style changed quickly in the first decade of the 20th century, keeping pace with the artistic developments of the time. Only few years before of the current painting, he still followed the neo-impressionist style. However, he came under the influence of cubism and the expressionist movement Der Blaue Reiter, with which he exhibited in Munich, in 1911, and his work quickly developed towards his own unique style, orphism, in which defragmentation and surface composition were central, and the figurative would become subordinate to these.
The Cardiff Team (French: L'Équipe de Cardiff) is an oil on canvas painting by French painter Robert Delaunay, created in 1913. It was the second in a series of paintings on the same subject produced between 1912 and 1913, and presented at the Salon des Indépendants, in 1913. The current painting is held at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris. Robert Delaunay was very involved in the artistic movements of the beginning of the 20th century. After going through neoimpressionism and divisionism, he created simultanism, with his wife, Sonia Delaunay, a technique which aimed to create pictorial harmony through the simultaneous arrangement of colors. Like his friends Guillaume Apollinaire and Blaise Cendrars, Delaunay was fascinated by modernity, whether by the exploits of aviators, like he shows in his Homage to Blériot, or in here by the sport of rugby, then in full expansion and already very popular in France and the British Isles. Delaunay took inspiration of a photograph that he saw in a magazine of a rugby game for the painting series of which this was the second made.
The Eiffel Tower series of Robert Delaunay (1885–1941) is a cycle of paintings and drawings of the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower was built by Gustave Eiffel. The series was painted in an emerging Orphist style, an art movement co-founded by Robert and Sonia Delaunay and František Kupka that added bright colors and increased abstraction to Cubism. The Eiffel Tower series sits chronologically and stylistically between the artist's Saint-Séverin series and Windows series.
Still Life with a Parrot is a 1907 oil painting by the French artist Robert Delaunay (then in his early twenties), today in the collection of the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, Alsace (inventory number 88.RP.71). A first version of the same motif, but in a more mosaic-like design, nowadays belongs to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, Spain. The Colmar painting is a manifestation of the young artist's interest in Michel-Eugène Chevreul's theories on colours, and one of his first experimental works. The painting had belonged to the art dealer Louis Carré (1897–1977) and was bought after his death by the Société Schongauer which administrates the museum since its foundation.
Portuguese Woman, also known as Tall Portuguese Woman, is an oil and wax on canvas painting by the French painter Robert Delaunay, created in 1916. It is held in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, in Madrid. There are others similarly named paintings by the same artist from this phase, in other museums. Robert and Sonia Delaunay where at the resort of San Sebastián, in Spain, when the First World War overtook them by surprise. They remained in Spain, staying for some months in Madrid. They decided to move to Portugal, settling in the northern village of Vila do Conde, near Porto, where they lived from June 1915 to March 1916. The Delaunays were captivated by the warm, clear light of northern Portugal. They were influence by that kind of lightning and by scenes of popular life, which they tried to capture in a series of works on the theme of village markets. Although Robert Delaunay had already experimented with abstract painting before, in 1912–1913, unlike other artists, such as Wassily Kandinsky, he did not see it as an end in itself but as part of his orphic style. They also came into contact with Portuguese painters like Amadeo de Souza Cardoso and Eduardo Viana, who were also influenced by their work.
Windows is a series of paintings created between 1912 and 1913 by the French painter Robert Delaunay. The paintings are oil and wax on canvas, and they mark Delaunay's turn towards abstraction and interest in color. The fragmented compositions of colored shapes are prime examples of Delaunay's use of simultaneous contrast. The title Windows can be interpreted literally as an indication that the pictures represent views from windows, but it also may figuratively refer to the human eye as a window to the visual world. Delaunay had begun to present Impressionist paintings in 1904 at the Salon des indépendants. He then incorporated ideas derived from the scientific work of Eugène Chevreul on color, the paintings of Seurat, and then Cézanne, whose work he discovered in 1907 when a major retrospective was dedicated to him.
Portrait of Tristan Tzara is an oil on paperboard painting by the French painter Robert Delaunay, created in 1923. It depicts the Romanian poet Tristan Tzara, a leading name of the Dada movement and a personal friend of the artists couple Robert and Sonia Delaunay. It is held in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, in Madrid. During the First World War, Robert and Sonia Delaunay took refuge in Spain and Portugal, where they continued their artistic work on the observation of light and colors. On their return, the influential artists of the 1910-1914 era had dispersed or died, or had been replaced by new artists, the Dadaists, who later would become the Surrealists. The Delaunays joined the new artistic and social life of their time, becoming friends with new influential artists, such as Philippe Soupault (of whom Robert also painted a portrait), André Breton, Louis Aragon,Jean Cocteau, or once again Igor Stravinsky and Vladimir Mayakovsky. But the most faithful friend of the decade, the one who spent many evenings with the Delaunays, was Tristan Tzara, the founder and leader of the Dada movement.
Mural decoration for the Salon des Tuileries
Homage to Blériot is a tempera on canvas painting by French painter Robert Delaunay, from 1914. It is held at the Kunstmuseum Basel. Another version of the same painting is held at the Museum of Grenoble. These paintings belong to the series Disks. This canvas celebrates the French aviation pioneer and constructor Louis Blériot, in a typical simultaneist composition, by notably representing symbols of progress, namely a biplane, seen flying above the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, at the right, and a propeller, at the left. However, the inscription left below the canvas reads "first simultaneous solar disks form" to the great constructor Blériot, suggesting that the painting is dedicated to Blériot, as the constructor and not as the pilot of the biplane.
Windows Open Simultaneously 1st Part, 3rd Motif (French: Fenêtres ouvertes simultanément Ière partie 3e motif) is an oil-on-canvas painting by French painter Robert Delaunay, created in 1912. It is part of the Windows painting series. The current painting, like its predecessor, Simultaneous Windows 2nd Motif, 1st Part, is held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, in New York. A painting with the same title is held at Tate Modern, in London. Delaunay when he created this painting series had already left representation. However, some references are still visible here, like the almost undetectable presence of the Eiffel Tower, in the green colour, at the center. The artist had been inspired by analytic cubism in his geometric forms, but this orphic composition is defined by the usage or diaphanous and prismatic colours.
Robert Delaunay - Rythmes sans fin exhibition. 15 October 2014 - 12 January 2015, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.