Issue No. 22 - Pullman Gallery

Bugatti Moderne
www.pullmangallery.com
www.pullmangallery.com
Feminine inspiration: historically significant and
highly expressive oil on canvas of massive
proportions, painted in 1929 and showing the
unmistakable influence of gifted avant-garde artist
Sonia Delaunay. “Jazz, hectic pace movies, America,
airplanes, the automobile,” wrote Bauhaus director
Oskar Sclemmer in 1925, “these are the terms in which
people think.” The creator of the most glamorous fast
cars racing in the 1920s was Ettore Bugatti, whose pur
sang automobiles were fine examples of the standard
of workmanship which Le Patron (as Bugatti was
Bugatti: Preliminary sketches for fabric design by
Sonia Delaunay, c. 1925.
known) demanded in his quest for perfection.
The various strands that form this magnificent rendering of Bugatti’s 1929 Type 43 Grand Sport
suggest a crossover between Cubism and Futurism. The vintage thoroughbred cresting the
brow of a hill, dust clouds dominant, is an intense, defining image of luxury, modernity and
speed.
It is not without interest that during the Great War The Observer in a startlingly prescient
judgement, informed readers that “the reviled Post-Impressionists, Cubists, Futurists,
Expressionists, Vorticists of today may be the honoured masters of tomorrow.” Well said.
Dimensions: 98’’ x 46’’ (249 cm x 108 cm). Ref 2676
Artist at work: the Ukranian-born Sonia Terk
(afterwards Delaunay, 1885-1979) was an artist in
every sense of the word. She produced, in a long
and prolific career, easel paintings, murals,
ceramics, mosaics, stained glass and theatrical,
graphic, fashion and interior designs. She
memorably prepared, in painterly fashion, a Bugatti
Type 35 for display at the 1925 Paris Exposition.
She is pictured on the bonnet of the Grand Prix car
wearing one of her own creations - a matching
Simultaneous dress. Sonia Delaunay, together with
her French husband, the painter Robert Delaunay,
was a leader of a developing style called Orphism
(sometimes referred to as Organic Cubism). An
early advocate of colour theory, her sharply
Sonia Delaunay and companion with the Citröen she
decorated for the Art Deco exhibition, Paris 1925.
Modernist designs (much coveted by among others silent movie star Gloria Swanson, and
socialite Nancy Cunard) launched a vogue for contrasting colour and became all the rage. It is
a measure of her enduring passion for fast cars that as late as 1967 she was creating a highly
individualistic design for the Matra 530.
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PULLMAN Issue No: 22 PULLMAN Issue No: 22
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