Cooper Hewitt says...
Robert Delaunay (born Paris, 12 April 1885 – died Montpellier, 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. Delaunay abandoned stage design for painting in 1905 and his first works are painted in a colourful Divisionist (Pointillist) technique. Under the influence of Cezanne he subdued his palette, but later returned to high-key colour in a series of pictures of Saint-Severin and the Eiffel Tower (c.1910) by which he is best known. Later he started isolating areas of pure colour in his pictures, a method which he called Orphism and which he saw as a logical development of Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism. The breaking up of the surface of his pictures into planes of colour eventually led to almost pure abstraction; his nonfigurative paintings are based on the optical characteristics of brilliant colors that are so dynamic they function as the form. In 1912 he was visited by members of the Blaue Reiter group upon whom he was to exert considerable influence, related to bold use of colour, and a clear love of experimentation with both depth and tone. It was also at this time that Delaunay explicity and publicly disavowed Cubism. By 1914, Delaunay had become recognized as the most significant painter in Paris. Between 1914 and 1920, Delaunay left France and settled in Portugal and Spain. While in Spain, he met Sergei Diaghilev, and designed the stage sets for Diaghilev's production of Cleopatra. Delaunay returned to Paris after the war, and continued to paint, mostly in the abstract style. During the 1937 World Fair in Paris, Delaunay participated in the design of the railway and air travel pavilions.
