Sonia Delaunay was born in the Ukraine in 1885 and raised in St. Petersburg. After studying drawing at Karlsruhe under Schmidt-Reutter she came to Paris in 1905 to be close to avant-garde circles. She studied at the Academie de la Palette, where Ozenfant and Dunoyer de Segonzac were fellow students. Her early work was influenced by the Fauves; some of her pictures from this period have an expressionist edge that contrasts with the gaiety of her later work. She had a short-lived marriage to Wilhelm Uhde.

Her first show was in 1908; she married Robert Delaunay in 1910. She did not exhibit her paintings again in any number until 1953, twelve years after her husband's death. Although she would not compete with her husband, Sonia painted...