Delaunay, Sonia (1885–1979)

Sonia Delaunay, lately often referred to as Delaunay-Terk, was a painter and textile designer who, together with her husband Robert Delaunay, was the precursor of a movement described as Orphism by the poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire. Sonia Delaunay was born as Sarah Stern in Gradizhsk in the Russian Empire, which is now part of the Ukraine. She was the youngest child of a poor Jewish couple. At the age of five, she was adopted by her mother’s brother Henri Terk, who worked as a lawyer in Saint Petersburg, and renamed Sonia Terk. She then had the opportunity to grow up in an environment surrounded by music and art and to learn several languages.