Page from portfolio facsimile of watercolour drawings of fashion plates entitled 'Sonia Delaunay; ses Peintures, ses Objets, ses Tissus simultanés, ses Modes', preface André Lhote, Librairie des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, ca. 1925.

Page from facsimile portfolio of watercolour drawings of fashion plates entitled 'Sonia Delaunay; ses Peintures, ses Objets, ses Tissus simultanés, ses Modes'. Features a group of five women in an interior (cocktail bar?) standing on a patterned rug in circles and triangles of brown, blue, red, black and white in front of a purple framed chair. The floor is a wash of green and grey-pink and the walls are patterned to the right with square and triangular blocks of colour in grey, yellow and beige and to the left with arcs of green, white, blue, grey and orange. To the left of the group is an orange bar? with black and white zig-zag patterned edge and two grey shapes resembling cocktail glasses, in which are shapes representing pieces of fruit (cherries, pineapple?). The women are wearing long dresses; from left to right, orange dress with a stole of orange and white squares, a dress patterned with blocks of white and two shades of green, a yellow dress with a white collar, a beige skirt and black top, a green dress.

Transferred from Circulation Department. Renumbered from existing 'C' numbers. The whole portfolio appears to have been accessioned into PDP in two groups, E.7 to 12-1980 and a later group, E.381 to 400-2009.

This portfolio is a facsimile of a collection of the watercolour designs for textiles and costume by Delaunay made between ca. 1915 to the mid-1920s. It includes poems by some of the poets of the avant garde and texts by Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay and Apollinaire, which praise Delaunay's work or relates to it in some way, reflecting the close relationship at that time between visual artists and writers. The facsimile represents the way in which, even at the time, artists such as Delaunay were recognised in Paris for their value to a wider public.

E.399-2009