Robert Delaunay

Robert Delaunay , 1885-1941, French painter; husband of Sonia Delaunay-Terk. By 1909, Delaunay had progressed from a neoimpressionist phase to cubism, applying cubist principles to the exploration of color. He immediately enlarged cubist themes to include the architecture of cities (e.g., La Ville de Paris, 1912; Musée d'Art moderne, Paris). He became a major figure in the movement Apollinaire termed orphism . This amalgam of fauve color, futurist dynamism, and analytical cubism sought to emulate the rhythms but not the appearance of nature. Delaunay is most famous for his series of paintings of the Eiffel Tower; one of them is in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City.

Bibliography: See M. Hoog, Delauney (1977).

Delaunay, Robert (1885–1941) French painter, co-founder (with his wife Sonia Delaunay-Terk) of orphism. Delaunay was a major influence on der Blaue Reiter. Many of his works are abstract cityscapes, principally of his native Paris. The Eiffel Tower series is his most famous.