Retrato de Tristan Tzara (Portrait of Tristan Tzara)

In Retrato de Tristan Tzara (Portrait of Tristan Tzara), Robert Delaunay portrays the founder of the Dada movement, a close friend of Robert and his wife Sonia. The picture is from a period when the painter had temporarily returned to figuration before giving it up definitively in 1930. The figure of the model, wearing a scarf of the sort designed by Sonia Delaunay, is executed in thick brushstrokes, according to Simultaneist technique. Although the painting does not fit perfectly within the parameters of Orphism, it could certainly be seen as an heir to that movement, as it still contains the constants from Robert Delaunay’s most characteristic period, focusing on colour and the application of the law of simultaneous contrasts. Indeed, along with a series of geometric designs approaching abstraction used as decorative motifs on the scarf, the model’s face still shows some signs of a chromatic treatment that indicates the importance that Delaunay gave to colour in Orphism.

Paloma Esteban Leal