What do Swiss architect Max Bill and Ukraine-born artist Sonja Delaunay have in common? At C.Neeon, it’s champagne and Gypsies!Inspired by the Russian proverb, “One cannot live without champagne and Gypsies,” designers Clara Leskovar and Doreen Schulz bring together the architectural structure of Bauhaus and the colorful geometric sensations of Orphism in their 2009 a/w collection.
Born in Gradizhske, Ukraine, Sarah Ilinitchna Stern (1885 – 1979) moved to St. Petersburg at a young age where she was adopted by her wealthy uncle Henri Terk and assumed the name Sonja Terk. Sonja traveled extensively throughout Europe with her aunt and uncle, visiting art museums and galleries. Eventually, she wound up attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, Germany, and the Académie de la Palette in France.Sonja later married Parisian artist Robert Delaunay in 1910 and bore a son. One day she set about making “little Charles" a blanket similar to those of Russian peasants, with pieces of colorful fabric geometrically stitched together. Evoking images of Cubism—an artistic form that communicates through color and form—Orphism was born as Sonja and Robert applied their strong colors and geometric shapes to other artistic media, including textiles, fashion, and stage design.
Meanwhile in 1908, Max Bill was born in Winterthur, a city in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland. Max Bill went on to study at Bauhaus—a school in Germany that combined crafts and fine arts, harmonizing function and design in geometric designs and relationships of planned color. Artist, sculptor, architect, and typographer—Max Bill became an avid proponent of Bauhaus, which exerted a marked influence on art and architecture, as well as on graphic, interior, and industrial design.
So, sit back with some champagne and Gypsies and watch the slide show below to pay tribute to Max Bill, who would have turned 100 this year!
By the way, if you do not have any Gypsy friends, click on Azis in my play list below—he's a Bulgarian Gypsy and my favorite vocalist. C.Neeon proves it right: One cannot live without champagne and Gypsies. I know I can't!
Slide show C.Neeon 2009 a/w collection Copyright by Alex Kohout.
Photo top left painting by Robert Delaunay, 1912-13, Museum of Modern Art (NYC) Public Domain at Wikipedia.
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