Sonia Delaunay : fashion and fabrics

The Russian artist Sonia Delaunay, who with her husband Robert Delaunay was a leading light of the Cubist splinter movement, Orphism, branched out after the First World War into a distinctive career of her own. Between 1920 and 1930, she produced some of the most striking and original fabric designs of modern times. She was the inventor of abstract designs for fabrics, and her materials were the rage among fashionable circles in the Art Deco era. Jacques Damase, the French publisher and art historian, inherited Delaunay's original designs and fabric samples, many of which were photographed for the first time for this book. His personal, informative introduction is complemented by a selection of writings by Delaunay's contemporary admirers and critics.