Word of the Week - 53

At the link, you can magnify to see the art in greater detail.  By Sonia Dalaunay.

Word of the Week: POCHOIR

The word is from the French and means, in brief, " a stencil process for making colored prints or adding color to a printed key illustration."  The illustration above is from an auction of "A Suite of 40 Pochoirs by Sonia Delaunay-Terk."  It is a word I don't believe I'd seen before.  Additional - extensive - background from Smithsonian Libraries may be found here.  All the links in this post have something to tell about Delaunay's history as an artist, most find ways of connecting her to the 21st century.  With the information offered, you are free to learn as much or as little as you like about Sonia Delaunay, her work and a life as colorful as her art.

My discovery of pochoir is the result of looking further into the work of Sonia Delaunay.

Sonia Delaunay textile, fashion designs.

Fashion sketches.

Sonia Delaunay costumes for a 1920 play.

An artist book, created using the pochoir method for Delaunay's richly-hued watercolor designs.

An excerpt from the review of a MoMA exhibit which included the book art above:

La Prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France, a collaborative book project by Sonia Delaunay and Blaise Cendrars (the pen name for Frédéric Louis Sauser, which literally implies burning ashes and is meant to invoke the rebirth of a phoenix) is included in the exhibition and is a dramatic re-envisioning of the book. It consists of four sheets glued together in a grid, with Sonia Delaunay’s signature vivid geometric watercolor painting, created by the pochoir method (painting through a stencil).  (the article, linked under the photo, is worth reading)

Eiffel Tower, oil painting.

Daulanay's Cubist bathing suits.