May 7, 2026, 7:25 p.m.
(Sonia Delaunay. PHOTO: odessa-life.od.ua)
A woman who launched a whole new trend in contemporary art. An artist who was honored with an exhibition in the Louvre during her lifetime. A mother who created a design masterpiece from a baby blanket. A muse who inspires great artists of the new century. All this is about one and only woman born in Odesa and known as Sonia Delaunay.
As a child, the future celebrity's name was Sarah Stern. And her birth in Odesa was not her lucky life ticket, as the family of Eli and Hannah Stern (née Turk) could not provide their children with a decent life.
Sonia Delaunay as a child. PHOTO: odessa-memory.info
Her father, a Volyn bourgeois, was a graduate of the Trud vocational school and worked at a nail factory. And if not for her mother's family connections, it would have been much harder for the girl to reach the European art Olympus.
Hanna Turk's brother Heinrich takes the girl to live with his family in St. Petersburg. Heinrich was a successful lawyer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. His wife Anna Zak is the daughter of philosopher and religious scholar Israel Zak and the niece of banker Abram Zak. Unfortunately, the couple had no children. Perhaps it was this unfortunate circumstance that became the winning lottery ticket for the future Sonia Delaunay. From the age of five, the girl finds herself in conditions she could not even dream of. Three governesses - an Englishwoman, a German, and a Frenchwoman - were responsible for her upbringing. The Turk family's wealth allowed them to travel throughout Europe, and their connections allowed them to attend receptions in the homes of respected families.
The Turk family also hired an art teacher who recognized her talent and advised her to continue her professional studies. The first place she went to was the Karlsruhe Art Academy, but Sonia didn't stay there long. She quickly realized that her stormy nature would be cramped within the confines of classical academic art.
Paris was the city where living art was booming. However, a young girl in the early twentieth century could not freely choose her destiny. The time of study flew by quickly, and she had to return home. Her foster parents hoped that their niece would find a worthy match, and art would become a hobby for the wife of a status man. But Sonya had completely different plans.
In order to stay in Europe and avoid uncomfortable questions from her relatives, in 1908 Sonya got married fictitiously. Her choice for such a delicate affair was her friend, the gallery owner Wilhelm Ude. The marriage was beneficial for both parties. Sonya gained the freedom she longed for, and Wilhelm was able to live without being judged by society for his unconventional sexual preferences.
However, this union did not last long. In her husband's gallery, Sonya met the French artist Robert Delaunay. It is said that when Robert learned about the true nature of the marriage, he told Wilhelm: "If you don't want her, I'll take her away." The lovers got married in 1910. At the same time, their son Charles was born.
Sonia and Robert Delaunay. PHOTO: tyzhden.ua
Family life did not stop Sonia's artistic pursuits. Under the influence of Van Gogh, Henri Rousseau, Fauvists, Cubists and, of course, Robert Delaunay, the artist moved away from naturalism towards geometry and abstraction. And he endlessly experiments with color.
Even the outbreak of the First World War did not stop Sonya's creative pursuits. From 1914 to 1920, the family lives in Spain and Portugal. Sonia Delaunay creates sets for Diaghilev's ballet Cleopatra, and her husband does not earn much money with his art. But the material side is not a significant problem. The family of their uncle Heinrich Turk helps the young people. The situation changed dramatically in 1917: after the Bolshevik coup, one could only rely on oneself.
Sonya became the family's breadwinner. Her and her husband's artistic experiments, called "orphism" or "simultanism," helped her to do so. Robert Delaunay was fascinated by the limitless properties of color, but his abstract paintings did not sell. But Sonya transferred her husband's ideas not to canvases, but to everyday things: clothes, accessories, interior items, and even cars.
According to family legend, it all started when Sonya made a patchwork quilt for her young son from scraps of colored fabric. Later, all their friends, then friends of friends, and finally the most famous representatives of the European artistic elite of the time became customers of Sonya's dresses, scarves, and ties.
It seems that Sonia found her own unique recipe for the coexistence of two creative units in a marriage. Robert creates a theory, and she brilliantly implements it, which brings not only success but also material prosperity.
In 1920, the doors of the Casa Sonia fashion studio open. In 1925, the artist took part in the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris.
Models wearing Sonia Delaunay's clothes. PHOTO: uainfo.org
She can do anything: sculpture, ceramics, watercolors. She illustrates books, creates costumes for theatrical performances, and even decorates the pavilion of the 1937 Paris World's Fair.
Gray clouds appeared with the outbreak of World War II. The black ones came after the death of his beloved in 1941. The artist devoted the next forty years of her life to promoting her husband's work. At the same time, she preserved her identity as an artist.
An example of the realization of Sonya's artistic and design ideas was her collaboration with the Dutch department store Metz and Co, which began in the 1920s. Sonia carefully studied each fabric print, creating several color variations. All the sketches were collected in a special book. In total, Metz has sold about 200 clothing models with Sonia Delaunay's designer prints. At the same time, there were ten times more sketches. During her life, Sonia created a range of 400 colors, which she gave her own names.
Samples of fabrics with prints by Sonia Delaunay for Metz & Co. PHOTO: yourforest.ua
In 1975, the artist was awarded the Legion of Honor. The largest collection of her works (117) is kept in the Louvre, where a retrospective exhibition of the artist was held in 1964.
In her autobiography, the artist devoted only seven pages to her family and childhood. These memories probably caused her pain even in adulthood.
So how did Sonia Delaunay's family live? Her mother and father and her younger brother Solomon stayed in Odesa. Solomon (Semen) did not receive a proper education and earned his living by doing manual labor. During the First World War, he went to the front and became a St. George's Knight. After the front, he joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party, for which he was arrested by the Bolsheviks and sentenced to 17 years in prison in the camps, where he died in 1937.
Another of Sonia's brothers, Zeilik (1888-1893), died in childhood from scarlet fever.
Her mother, Hanna Stern (Turk), lived in Odesa at 8 Pastera Street and died in poverty around the 1930s. Sonya received letters from her (the last dated 1931) and other relatives as long as it was possible. For some time, money and food could be sent from abroad, but then this practice was banned.
Elia Stern's father worked as an engineer at a white tinplate factory in Odesa for several decades and even managed the enterprise in his last years. He died in 1919 of tuberculosis.
Sonya's maternal uncle Mark Tovievych Turk, the owner of an agricultural equipment sales office, also lived in the same house as her parents at 8 Pastera Street. His daughter Tetiana corresponded with Sonya and helped her mother in the last years of her life.
We don't know how Sarah Stern's life would have turned out if she had stayed with her parents in Odesa. Perhaps she would still have made it to Paris at the cost of great effort. Or she would not have survived the famine of the 1920s or the great terror of the 1930s. Or she would have survived at the cost of creative silence or a deal with her own conscience. Today we know only one Sonia Delaunay. The one created by Sonia Delaunay herself.
Sonia Delaunay in her studio. PHOTO: uainfo.org
During an interview in 1975, the artist was asked whether it was common for girls in the Russian Empire of the early twentieth century to become artists and go to Paris on their own. Sonya replied: "Everyone makes their own life."
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