Robert Delaunay

Sonia Delaunay, Paris
Gazel Collection
Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1991

Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Wege zur Abstraktion, 1989, no. 14, recto illustrated in colour in the catalogue (as dating from 1923)
Cologne, Galerie Gmurzynska, Malerei im Prisma: Freundeskreis Sonia und Robert Delaunay, 1991, recto illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Guy Habasque, 'Catalogue de l'œuvre de Robert Delaunay', in Robert Delaunay, Du Cubisme à l'Art Abstrait, Paris, 1957, no. 213, catalogued p. 285 (with incorrect measurements)

The canvas is unlined and the artist has painted on both sides of the canvas. There is some stable craquelure on both sides. Recto: There are some areas of retouching throughout the canvas, visible under ultra-violet light, the most significant of which are: in the yellow form in the lower right; two diagonal areas and a vertical line in the pink area in the lower left; two thin parallel vertical lines in the upper left, probably corresponding to a fold in the canvas; areas in the upper left and upper right corners; on the upper left framing edge where there are quite extensive retouchings going into the circular forms; and retouchings at the right, lower and left framing edges. Verso: There are some retouchings visible under ultra-violet light, most notably: in the upper left, lower left and upper right corners; an area in the lower right; a number of small retouchings in the black pigment of the dress; a triangular area on the left and right framing edges; and other small scattered spots. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although the recto is more luminous in the original, and the verso is slightly more subtle in the original.
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The luminous Disques colorés dates from the pivotal period in Robert Delaunay's art, when, influenced by the Cubism defined by Picasso and Braque, he developed his own highly abstract and ground-breaking pictorial manner. It was painted in 1913, the year Delaunay formulated Orphism, a style which combined abstract, often circular imagery, with a stunning and novel use of bright colours.

 

Disques colorés is closely related to the series titled Manège électrique or Manège de cochons, the first version of which Delaunay painted in 1906 and subsequently destroyed. He took up the theme again in 1913, and the present work was executed in preparation for the second version, which was presented that year at the Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon in Berlin, and later also destroyed. The only remaining version of Manège électrique is the monumental oil from 1922, now in the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris (fig. 1).

 

Throughout his career, Delaunay was fascinated by themes from modern life, and his subjects included the Eiffel Tower, views of Paris and sporting spectacles. The brightly coloured discs, as in the present work, 'are the halos of light [...], cast by the electric street lamps which were just beginning to replace the old gaslamps in Paris particularly on the Boulevard Saint Michel, where Sonia and Robert Delaunay, whose studio was in the Rue des Grands Augustins, often used to walk at night. This was the first idea on a theme which, to quote the words of the art historian Pierre Francastel [...], "first became apparent in Delaunay's collaboration with the magical forces of the modern world"' (in Malerei im Prisma: Freundeskreis Sonia und Robert Delaunay (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., p. 73).

 

As was sometimes Delaunay's practice, he used the reverse of the present canvas to paint another composition several years later. Portrait de Hélène Marre of 1923 depicts a friend of Sonia and Robert Delaunay, wearing one of the 'simultaneous dresses' (fig. 2) designed by Sonia Delaunay.

Fig. 1, Robert Delaunay, Manège électrique or Manège de cochons, 1922, oil on canvas, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris
Fig. 2, A model wearing a 'simultaneous dress' designed by Sonia Delaunay, Paris, 1925