Cara Manes Libri

"Alexander Calder's work first appeared in The Museum of Modern Art's galleries in 1930, in the exhibition Painting and Sculpture by Living Americans. Over the next decades the artist's connection with the Museum would be deep, productive, and mutually beneficial. Calder cultivated friendships and working relationships with notable figures, including Alfred H. Barr Jr., the Museum's founding director, and James Johnson Sweeney, with whom he collaborated on his expansive retrospective exhibition in 1943. His work is imprinted on MoMA's early history, not only for its material and conceptual innovation but also for its presence at significant moments, such as a mobile made to hang over the lobby's grand staircase on the occasion of the new Goodwin and Stone building (Lobster Trap and Fish Tail, which hangs there to this day); an elaborate candelabra to adorn the tables at a celebratory anniversary event; and a sculpture to fly off a flagpole to advertise the landmark exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art."--Provided by publisher

Sonia Delaunay made enormous contributions to the development of abstraction in the early 1900s. Sonia Delaunay: Art Is Life introduces young audiences to her art as Sonia and her six-year-old Charles embark on a magical road trip in their car, modelled after Sonia's 1925 design for a Citroën convertible. Together they glide into a landscape made up of colours and shapes drawn from Sonia's early abstract compositions - almost as if they've entered one of her paintings. Along the road, they make pit stops at 'sites' that inspired some of Sonia's key paintings of this period (such as the dance hall depicted in her 1913 work Bal Bulier and the open air Portuguese market that was the subject of her 1915 painting Marché au Minho). Sonia and Charles also explore her gorgeous and colourful designs for fabrics and clothing. Through these encounters, Sonia helps her son understand her artistic process of abstracting from reality by asking Charles what shapes and colours he discerns within these subjects. Their journey ends back in the real world, and Charles realizes that his mother's thinking about art permeates every aspect of their life.

Sonia Delaunay war eine der faszinierendsten Künstlerpersönlichkeiten ihrer Zeit. Wer ihre in kräftigen Farben leuchtenden Bilder und Textilien einmal gesehen hat, wird sie nie mehr vergessen. Im Buch nimmt Sonia ihren kleinen Sohn Charles mit auf ein Abenteuer, das sie durch eine Welt aus Formen und Farbe führt.