Sonia Delaunay: Living Art

A richly crafted tribute to the avant-garde artist and designer Sonia Delaunay, whose boundary-breaking approach is echoed in the volume’s interdisciplinarity and its inspired design

Winner of the 2025 Dedalus Foundation Exhibition Catalogue Award

Named one of AIGA's 50 Covers for 2024

Described as “the most significant contribution to Sonia Delaunay studies in a decade,” this catalogue sets a new standard for the study of this pioneering avant-garde artist, designer, and entrepreneur (1885–1979). Eschewing traditional chronological structures to better showcase groundbreaking research unifying the artist’s timeless oeuvre across mediums, this publication demonstrates Delaunay’s innate versatility and willingness to create without material limitation using her unique language of light and color. Textiles, fashion, interiors, book art, and more are highlighted across 26 chapters by leading international scholars to give new insight into Delaunay’s strategies of self-promotion, entrepreneurial endeavors, legacy-building efforts, and vast network of collaborators. These in-depth analyses, including previously underinvestigated material such as film, mosaics, tapestries, and interior design, offer a comprehensive perspective on Delaunay’s lifelong effort to unite art with life by harnessing the energy of technological advancement and the beauty of artisanal craftsmanship. Finally, an appendix provides a unique personal note—an epilogue by Patrick Raynaud, the last living member of Delaunay’s atelier—is a touching firsthand account of the artist’s working practices toward the end of her life. The design, by award-winning book creator Irma Boom, embraces Sonia Delaunay’s own approach to layout and typography, rendering a book that unites past and present to become a work of art in its own right.

Distributed for the Bard Graduate Center

Exhibition Schedule:

Bard Graduate Center, New York
(February 23–July 7, 2024)