With this comprehensive exhibition, the largest ever to be mounted in Switzerland, the Kunsthaus Zürich will pay homage to the work of Robert Delaunay (1885 –1941), one of the foremost pioneers of early 20th-century art. This visually engaging exhibition will showcase two major paintings from the Kunsthaus’s rich collection – ‘Circular Forms (Sun and Moon)’, 1913 –1931 and the monumental ‘Circular Forms’, 1930 – and will allow the public to experience the wide-ranging and innovative nature of Delaunay’s work, exploring the significant themes that were to preoccupy him throughout his career: light, colour and the pictorial expression of the process of vision. It will also show how, as a passionate advocate and practitioner of abstract art, he became a central figure within the Parisian avant-garde.

Including some eighty paintings and works on paper, the exhibition will emphasize Delaunay’s commitment to colour painting and his interest in optics, while highlighting how the metropolis of Paris often provided the stimulus for his imagery and pictorial research. Works by early 20th-century photographers and filmmakers, who were also inspired by the fabric of the city, will complement the display.

Curated by Simonetta Fraquelli