Kunsthaus Zürich
From 31 August to 18 November 2018
 Robert Delaunay, The Runners, 1924–1925. Oil on canvas, 153 x 203 cm. Private collection. |
“Air, Iron, and Water. Study for a mural,” 1936–1937, Robert Delaunay, Gouache on paper and wood, 47 x 74.5 cm.Albertina, Wien. Batliner Collection
Some 80 paintings, works on paper, films and photographs that explore his favourite themes – aviation, sport and the use of colour in art – will introduce you to Delaunay’s art and his artistic milieu.
Robert Delaunay, Self-Portrait, 1909Oil on canvas, 73 x 60 cmCentre Pompidou, Musée national d’artmoderne - Centre de création industrielle,Paris. Donation Sonia Delaunay et CharlesDelaunay, 1964Photo: © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI,Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/ Philippe Migeat
Robert Delaunay was fascinated by technological inventions, the Eiffel Tower and photography. In his depiction of the Eiffel Tower, Robert Delaunay combined the dynamism of the vibrant metropolis with the intensity of his colour studies.
Robert Delaunay, Eiffel Tower andGardens, Champ de Mars, 1922Oil on canvas, 178.1 x 170.4 cmHirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.,The Joseph H. Hirshhorn Bequest, 1981Photo: Lee StalsworthAndré Kertész, Eiffel Tower, 1929Gelatine silver print, 27.5 x 34.4 cmMusée Carnavalet - Histoire de ParisPhoto: Musée Carnavalet / Parisiennede Photographie© RMN-Grand Palais – Gestion droitd’auteur
Modern technology, speed and movement dominate Robert Delaunay’s approach to life. In 1892 Paris receives electric street lighting, illuminating the night as if it were day, while in 1909 Blériot makes the first powered flight across the Channel. This was the backdrop for Delaunay’s investigations into how certain colour contrasts affect the eye and the creation of his ‘electric prisms’ and ‘circular forms’ – the earliest abstract images.
Robert Delaunay, Study for «La Ville»,1909–1910Oil on canvas, 88.3 x 124.5 cmTate: Presented by the Friends of theTate Gallery 1958
Photo: © Tate, London, 2018
Robert Delaunay b. 1885, Paris; d. 1941, Montpellier, France
The City 1911 Oil on canvas 57 1/16 x 44 1/8 inches (145 x 112 cm)
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, By giftThe meeting of Sonia Delaunay and the poet Blaise Cendrars led to a fruitful collaboration and one of the most beautiful artists’ books, ‘La prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France’ (‘Prose of the Trans-Siberian and of Little Joan of France’), in which text, the rhythm of language, colours and forms blend into a unique ‘simultaneous’ whole.
For the exhibition Robert Delaunay and The City of Lights , major museums and private collections in Europe and America have assisted Simonetta Fraquelli, a freelance curator specializing in early 20th-century Parisian art, by lending some of their Delaunay masterpieces which, for conservation reasons, are rarely permitted to travel. They include the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou in Paris, the van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
Robert Delaunay, Political Drama, 1914Oil and collage on cardboard,88.7 x 67.3 cmNational Gallery of Art, Washington,Donation Joseph H. Hazen Foundation
Robert Delaunay, Portrait of MadameHeim,1926Oil on canvas, 120 x 75 cmCalouste Gulbenkian Museum / ModernCollectionPhoto: José Manuel Costa Alves
Robert Delaunay, Saint-Séverin, 1909Watercolour and pencil on paper,47.8 x 34 cmMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston,Bequest of Betty Bartlett McAndrew
Robert Delaunay, The Eiffel Towerand the Airplane, 1925Oil on canvas, 155 x 95 cmCourtesy Galerie Le Minotaure,Paris
Robert Delaunay, Disc (The First Disc),
1913
Oil on canvas, diameter 124 cm
Esther Grether Familiensammlung
Robert Delaunay, Windows Open
Simultaneously (1st Part, 3rd Motif),
1912
Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 37.5 cm
Tate: purchase 1967
Photo: © Tate, London, 2018
Robert Delaunay, Eiffel Tower, 1926–1928
Conté crayon on paper, 62.3 x 47.5 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New
York. The Hilla Rebay Collection
Robert Delaunay, Rythmes: Joie
de Vivre, 1930
Oil on canvas, 146 x 130 cm
Private collection
CATALOGUE
Robert Delaunay and The City of Lights will recognize Delaunay’s unwavering commitment to color in painting to convey form, depth, light and movement, while highlighting how the modern metropolis of Paris often provided the inspiration for his imagery and pictorial research. In addition to presenting works from of his most famous series of paintings, such as that of the Eiffel Tower, the book also includes portraits Delaunay made of his artistic milieu during the 1920s. Portraits of the poets Philippe Soupault, Tristan Tzara, and several fashionable socialites, wearing ensembles designed by the artist Sonia Terk-Delaunay, are shown. The newly commissioned texts allow the reader to experience the wide-ranging and prescient nature of Robert Delaunay’s work – exploring the significant themes of movement, technology, sport, and advertising that were to preoccupy him throughout his career.
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