COMPOSITIONS, COULEURS, IDÉES

Paris: Editions d'Art [1930] C. Moreau Editeur, publisher's cloth-backed board portfolio with original silk ties, 33.5 x 25.5 cm, complete with half-title, title, and 40 hand-colored pochoirs on velin paper, page size 32.2 x 24.5 cm.  Boards show minor wear with the front board bearing a small library number, as does the title page.  The 40 pochoirs are in Fine condition with no markings or damage of any kind.  The set belonged to a professional library for teachers; the card on the inside back board (see last photo) shows no entries — the portfolio was never circulated, which undoubtedly accounts for the pristine condition of the prints.

Pochoir is the French term for a stenciled, highly refined hand-colored printmaking method, which reached its peak in Paris during the Art Deco era.  The technique used multiple hand-cut stencils and dense gouache or watercolor to create vibrant, velvety, limited-edition prints.  Because the process required highly skilled artisans and was exceedingly labor-intensive, the golden age of fine-art stencil publishing died out in the early 1930s with the rise of cheaper commercial printing.

Ukrainian-born French artist Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979) received her formal training in Russia and Germany before settling in Paris, where she became a revolutionary figure in the art world.  A pioneering figure of the 20th-century avant-garde, she was celebrated for her mastery of color and the ability to dissolve the boundaries between various art forms.  Deeply rooted in geometric abstraction and Orphism (focus on pure abstraction, bright, prismatic colors, and the sensory effects of light), her unique, vibrant, ever-modern designs seamlessly merged fine art with decorative and applied arts.  By integrating these striking patterns across textiles, furniture, clothing, and interior design, she revolutionized the field during the 1920s and 30s.

Known as 'The Mother of Art Deco Abstraction,' Delaunay was the first living female artist to have a retrospective at the Louvre, in 1964.  After her early successes, she wrote what might be regarded as her artistic credo:  "Up to the present, painting has been nothing but photography in color, but the color was always used as a means of describing something.  Abstract art is a beginning towards freeing the old pictorial formula.  A new era of painting unfolds upon realizing that color possesses its own life, creating infinite combinations that offer a poetic language far more expressive than conventional methods.  It is a mysterious language related to vibrations, the very life of color.  In this area there are infinite possibilities."

Complete examples of this suite of 40 pochoirs are rare, especially in this condition, although individual sheets occasionally appear on the market.

Ships from the United States.