Sonia Delaunay: A Life of Color
By (Author) Cara Manes
Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
1st September 2017
United States
Children
Non Fiction
709.2
Hardback
32
Width 230mm, Height 298mm
520g
Sonia Delaunay made enormous contributions to the development of abstraction in the early 1900s. Sonia Delaunay: Art Is Life introduces young audiences to her art as Sonia and her six-year-old Charles embark on a magical road trip in their car, modelled after Sonia's 1925 design for a Citroen convertible. Together they glide into a landscape made up of colours and shapes drawn from Sonia's early abstract compositions - almost as if they've entered one of her paintings. Along the road, they make pit stops at 'sites' that inspired some of Sonia's key paintings of this period (such as the dance hall depicted in her 1913 work Bal Bulier and the open air Portuguese market that was the subject of her 1915 painting Marche au Minho). Sonia and Charles also explore her gorgeous and colourful designs for fabrics and clothing. Through these encounters, Sonia helps her son understand her artistic process of abstracting from reality by asking Charles what shapes and colours he discerns within these subjects. Their journey ends back in the real world, and Charles realizes that his mother's thinking about art permeates every aspect of their life.
"Ramos's artwork echoes the shapes of colors of Delaunay's art brilliantly . . . A visual treat and a fine addition to round out any collection of art and monograph books for young children."-- "School Library Journal"
Cara Manes is Assistant Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Fatinha Ramos is an award-winning illustrator and visual artist originally from Portugal. She is based in Antwerp, Belgium.