Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979)
Dessin 1189, Paris 1929
Silk with geometric modernist dessin no.1189, in primary colours with grey.
Scarf dimensions 6 x 60 cm.
Tie dimensions: 9 x 145 cm.
Design Dessin 1189:
Sonia Delaunay, Paris 1929, in 1933 the design was sold by Delaunay to Metz&Co where it was presented under the Metz number M179
Execution:
Fabric: textile printing company Petit Didier, France
Scarf: Eleonora van der Leck- Schonk (1913-1989) daughter of the artist Bart van der Leck.
Tie: maker unknown.
Provenance:
Scarf: Eleonora van der Leck-Schonk;
Tie: Henk de Leeuw director-owner of Metz&Co; Daniel de Leeuw
Exhibited:
Fabric: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, ‘Sonia Delaunay, Metz est venu’, Amsterdam/Paris 1992.
Tie: Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum, ‘Color Moves’: Art&Fashion by Sonia Delaunay, New York USA 2011.
Dessin 1189 depicted in the catalogue of the exhibition ‘Sonia Delaunay Metz est Venu’, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, The Netherlands 1992.
Dessin 1189 and the avant-garde.
Design 1189/M179 was created at the end of the roaring twenties when the couple Sonia and Robert Delaunay were successful artists in their hometown Paris.
Sonia had founded her own fashion house ‘Maison Delaunay’ in 1924, where she sold modern fabrics that she designed herself to a domestic and foreign clientele. Sonia and Robert actively participated in the social life of the avant-garde in their city. Their circle of friends and acquaintances included the artists; Van Doesburg, Arp, Chacall, Kandinsky, Naum Gabo, Van Tongerloo and Mondriaan. They visited jazz concerts together because Sonia, like Mondriaan, was crazy about this new music. Both Jazz and Sonia’s new fabrics, added color, rhythm and speed to modern life!
Delaunay, De Leeuw and Metz&Co
Joseph de Leeuw, director and owner of the avant-garde department store Metz&Co in Amsterdam, met Sonia for the first time at the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1925. From that year on he bought fashion-fabrics from her company ‘Maison Delaunay’. From 1930 onwards, Metz&Co also produced fabrics designed by Delaunay. She was artistically and commercially important to Metz&Co; her repetitive geometric motifs were modern and playful and became iconic for the fashion fabrics of the department store.
Book-print of Dessin 1189, illustrated in Petra Timmer, ‘Metz&Co, the creative years’, page 137.
Provenance scarf:
The granddaughter of the well known painter Bart van der Leck’s told us that her mother, who was Van der Leck’s eldest daughter Eleonora (1913-1989), made this silk scarf herself from a fabric from the Metz&Co fashion-fabrics collection.
The Van der Leck family had easy acces to the Metz&Co collection because Bart van der Leck worked for Metz&Co for a long time. He was a designer of carpets, interior fabrics and created their house style and was an important interior and colour advisor for the department store and the De Leeuw family in private. Warm and long-lasting friendships developed between the De Leeuw family and the Van der Leck family. Sonia Delaunay was considered a friend of both families.
Provenance of the tie
The tie here on offer belonged to the private wardrobe of Henk de Leeuw (1908-1978) who knew Sonia Delaunay well, first as head of the fabric department and later as director-owner of Metz&Co.
According to a photo from around 1930 that is shown in both the exhibition catalogue ‘Metz est Venu’ and in ‘Metz&Co the creative years’ by Timmer, this was not the only “Delaunay tie” he owned. We see Henk de Leeuw here with a Delaunay tie with a different design. It is not known whether these were one-off products intended for personal use or whether Metz had ties made for the fashion collection from silk printed with Delaunay designs.
The tie, here on offer, was exhibited at the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York in 2011. It is depicted full-page in the exhibition catalogue ‘Color Moves: Art&Fashion by Sonia Delaunay’, on page 171.
Condition and restorations
Both scarf and the tie are in very good original condition, with an occasional tiny stain or pull, they have not been restored.
Literature:
– Petra Timmer, ‘Metz&Co the creative years’, 010 Publishers Rotterdam, The Netherlands 1995, page 133-137 image 186, page 137 image 198.
– Catalogue Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, ‘Sonia Delaunay, Metz est venu’, Amsterdam/Paris 1992, page 21.
– Catalogue Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt, National design Museum, ‘Color Moves: Art&Fashion by Sonia Delaunay’, New York USA 2011, page 170.
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