About

The presented research encompasses the history behind a reproduction of Robert Delaunay's famous painting "Rythme sans fin". Delaunay's painting inspired various artists throughout the past 90 years. Less known is the fact that the painting's subject originated from Robert's wife Sonia Delaunay-Terk. After Robert's early death in 1941, Sonia was determined to ensure his legacy. She favoured preserving his artistic memory to her own artistic carreer, for instance through a series of retrospectives of his work. In order to ensure a broad public would comprehend his genius, she even credited works they had developed together solely to him. „Rythme sans fin“ is one of them. Sonia Delaunay-Terk created the subject as a textile study in the year 1922/23. Because of their symbiotic way of working, Robert soon used the subject for his own paintings and created several canvases of the same title. Sonia created at least 1832 documented variations of the „Rythme sans fin“ theme between 1922 and the year of her death in 1979, which is known thanks to her meticulous numbering of each piece.
Her efforts to spread Robert's legacy had great impact on minimalist and abstract art. Artworks of Frank Stella, Jasper Johns or Kenneth Noland highlight how Robert's and Sonias oeuvre likewise influenced a whole generation of succeeding artists.
While copying is a cornerstone of art production, in terms of copyright protecting, the named practice is not beyond dispute. The copyright protection of Sonia's and Robert's works ist a textbook case: While his work is public domain and, thus, free to be quoted and spread, Sonia's oeuvre is copy-protected to an extent that prevents museums to display reproductions of her works in their online catalogues. Understanding history of art as a circular process, I created 1832 cases of copyright infringements as a tribute to the 1832 variations of the "Rythme sans fin"-theme Sonia Delaunay-Terk authored during her lifetime.

The hyperlink library will be expanded in course of my research progress. Copyright restrictions and artworks belonging to private collections protract any research on Sonia Delaunay-Terk's oeuvre. Hence, reproductions of artworks cited by her biographers are often not available. Content with limited copyright protection as well as images from my archive are displayed on this platform. To view the copyright protected images, please follow the hyperlinks below the respective caption.