SONIA DELAUNAY

An artist whose career spanned the whole of the modernist movement is finally receiving her due. The wife of modernist painter Robert Delaunay, Russian-born Sonia was an artist in her own right. But it wasn't until years after Robert's death from cancer in 1941 that she emerged from his shadow and was recognized by the art community as a real force. Samples of her early sketches provided by Baron, a senior editor at Thames and Hudson, and poet Damase, who was also a good friend of Sonia's, show her talent in representative drawing, but she soon eschewed more traditional forms for the colorful, energetic abstract designs for which she is well known. Sonia not only painted but designed costumes, carpets, book jackets, clothing, and more. Still, her primary devotion was to her painting, which she practiced until the very end of her life: She died in her studio in 1979, at the age of 94. (115 color plates, 88 b&w illustrations)