Recovering from the end of term - The Sonia Delaunay exhibition at the Tate

I met Rosalind on Friday at Waterloo station and after a lengthy coffee discussing her party, we walked to the Tate, and she was the ideal person to see the exhibition with, because she is an artist with a great feeling for colour and she is also interested in textiles. We had very different ideas about what we liked so that was interesting.

First of all, there were these pictures which Sonia D painted in or around 1907. Roz noted the Kelim carpet background.

I find the green - tinted flesh very off-putting. These are like German expressionist colours and don't the German expressionists use them to show feelings of tension and even hysteria? 

She painted her dressmaker over and over again, and so she did with a Finnish friend. Clearly, the finnish friend had a typically Finnish snub-nosed wide-cheeked face which Sonia D found fun to put into colours.

This one is much more likeable; even the yellow eyelids, and she could probably show it at the Portait awards this year and it wouldn't look out of date.

Here is her dressmaker.

Again, I have seen a portrait like this at the BP Portrait show - the patterned background, the bright colour. But it is also right in the avant garde of its time (Picasso and Matisse).

And this one is very like a Matisse sketch - but this is my favourite - it's very calm, the structure is simple and the gold colour is arresting and subtle.

Ahhhh.

I've just realised that there are two circles in this pic, and I think at this point Sonia goes into circle mode. She paints in another style, very abstract, which involves as many circles as possible, and they are OK.... But first there is an in between stage of the semi-abstract, which is interesting to look at; trying to see the figures that are hidden in the colours.

this one isn't in the Tate, but I couldn't resist it - so pretty!

This is some kind of ball or dance - 

More abstract ones.

Circle mode 

Delaunay could have carried on painting all this abstract stuff forever but she had always liked putting ideas into clothing and when her money from Russia dried up she just had to make a living, so she went into fashion. Think Laura Ashley, Cath Kidston - only more upmarket.

This is Delaunay's first go at dressmaking with her own ideas, and I have to say it's ghastly and looks mad. But Roz liked it. There's a great mix of textures - she particularly liked mixing material with a "nap" like fur and velvet with smooth and shiny fabrics, and she intentionally added a baggy bit on one side of the part that covers the bottom. The whole thing is extremely badly stitched.

Luckily in the 1920's SD's aesthetic matched the Art Deco aesthetic to a T and the union of shapes, colour, design and workmanship was a very strong one.

Peculiar padded swimsuit with no "bottoms".

Amazing coat which Roz loved, all longstitch,  but the colours are now very dull (after all these years)

These shoes are so lovely - made in long stitch.

The original designs are so beautiful

And finally we get onto my favourite bit - fabric design. Sonia Delaunay had an endless fountain of ideas for fabrics, and they are all cheerful and wearable and desirable. She was FANTASTIC at design.

and here is a piece of her work in progress:

More designs:

What a lot one can do with small strokes of the pen and judicious use of colour!

They just make you want to make things. for all creative people, what an inspiration!! amazing and wonderful. 

Then we went to Pizza Express at the Globe, then to Borough Market (all poshed up for the tourists and not at all the old market of a few years ago, now that tourists are taking photos of cheeses and things with that determined look on their faces as though they know they  must find the experience in some way enjoyable), but Roz bought some nectarines at 5  for £1 and they were excellent. What an eye for a bargain. We had an enjoyable conversation with a fishmonger. We then went out to the rest of Southwark and walked about rather randomly until we found the Menier Chocolate Factory, where we went to see more pictures, and then walked some more and found a very poor Catholic church - the walls of painted brick, the windows minimally decorated, the pews of pine. I loved it and lit some candles for S and F and J and R; all my clever darlings, of whom only S would see the point in lighting a candle.


I had a very happy day with Roz even though I felt emotionally exhausted after all those goodbyes - art helps me to balance myself.