Sleeping Girl - Sonia Delaunay
Archival giclée
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Description
An early Fauvist portrait by Sonia Delaunay, featuring a sleeping figure rendered in bold, non-naturalistic colours and simplified forms.
This early work by Sonia Delaunay, created around 1907, reflects the influence of Fauvism and the artist's engagement with non-naturalistic colour palettes. During this period, Delaunay moved away from traditional academic representation, opting instead for bold, expressive hues that define the form of the subject. The composition focuses on a figure in repose, with the head resting upon an arm. The skin tones are rendered in unexpected shades of blue, pink, and violet, which contrast with the dark, solid mass of the clothing and the ochre-yellow background.
The application of paint is direct and unblended, a technique that emphasises the flatness of the picture plane. The subject wears a simple pendant, which provides a small, circular point of light against the dark garment. This piece predates the artist's later experiments with Orphism and geometric abstraction, yet it contains the seeds of her interest in the emotional capacity of colour. The lack of depth and the simplified contours demonstrate a clear departure from the realism of the nineteenth century. Delaunay uses these stylistic choices to create a sense of quietude, focusing on the internal state of the sleeper rather than a precise anatomical rendering. The work serves as a record of her transition from her initial training in Germany to the avant-garde circles of Paris, where she would eventually become a central figure in modern design and painting.
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Each print is produced to order using 12-colour giclée printing on FSC-certified archival paper. Designed in Britain and printed at your nearest production hub to reduce waste and speed up delivery.
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Specific Features
Every Solis piece is made to order with archival, gallery-quality materials built to last.
- Museum-grade giclée printing for rich, fade-resistant colour
- Archival matte fine-art paper, FSC-certified
- Multiple sizes and framing options available
- Frames in black, natural wood, dark wood or white
- Framed prints arrive ready to hang
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- Dust gently with a soft, dry cloth
- Avoid prolonged direct sunlight
- Never use liquid cleaners on the print or canvas surface
- Keep in a dry, room-temperature space
- Handle prints with clean, dry hands
Materials & Sizing
Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
Sleeping Girl - Sonia Delaunay
Artist Biography
Sonia Delaunay
She was born Sara Stern in 1885 in Hradyzk, Ukraine. At five, her wealthy uncle Henri Terk adopted her and took her to St Petersburg. She grew up with access to art collections, European travel, and a good education. She studied in Karlsruhe, moved to Paris in 1905, and absorbed the Fauvists and Post-Impressionists. After meeting Robert, they developed what Guillaume Apollinaire named Orphism: a variant of Cubism built on pure colour, geometric abstraction, and dynamic movement. Their shared foundation was Chevreul's colour theory of simultaneous contrast, where adjacent colours alter each other's appearance.
In 1913, she sewed the simultaneous dress by hand from scraps of men's tailoring cloth, velvet, silk, and fur. It was designed to match the energy of the foxtrot and tango at Le Bal Bullier, a popular Parisian dance hall. Apollinaire urged readers to visit the Bal Bullier on Thursdays when the Delaunays arrived wearing her creations. The same year, she collaborated with Blaise Cendrars on La Prose du Transsiberien, a two-metre vertical fold-out combining his poem with her abstract colour panels. It is described as the first complete fusion of poetry and painting.
She treated painting, textiles, and fashion as a single practice. She set up a studio in their apartment, opened a fashion house called Sonia, and had her textile line picked up by one of Europe's biggest fabric manufacturers. In 1964, she became the first living woman to have a retrospective at the Louvre. She was seventy-nine. She died in 1979, aged ninety-four.
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