La correspondance d'A. A. Smirnov avec S. I. Terk (Sonia Delaunay), 16 septembre 1904-8 avril 1905

Abstract

Jean-Claude Marcadé, The correspondence of A. A. Smirnov with S.I. Terk (Sonia Delaunay). Sept. 16, l904-Apr.8, 1905. Little is known of the formative years of the painter Sonia Delaunay before her marriage with Robert Delaunay in 1910 which marked her entrance into the history of European avant-garde art. The letters of the young student, the future renowned professor of the St. Petersburg University, A. A. Smirnov, of which we publish below the first set, underline the artistic choices of a young Russian girl, then called Sofia Il'inichna Terk, who came to Europe to study the art of painting. Though we do not have the letters of S.I. Terk, those of A. A. Smirnov witness the great interest with which the future Sonia Delaunay was following all that was being done in Russia where the movement of Mir iskusstva was laboriously creating the new art. The letters of A. A. Smirnov, characterized by a great stylistic agility, give us also the picture of artistic and political life in Russia at the time of the 1905 revolution.