“Abstract art is only important if it is the endless rhythm where the very ancient and the distant future meet.”
- Sonia Delaunay
Sonia Delaunay was born to impoverished Jewish parents in Odessa, Ukraine. At five, she went to live with her mother's well-off brother, Henri Terk, and his wife in St. Petersburg, Russia. She was well education, had access to great art collections, and traveled Europe spending her summers in Finland. An art teacher spotted her talent and encouraged her uncle and aunt to send her to Germany for art training. She later moved to Paris to study at at the Académie de La Palette, however, she spent more time absorbing the works of post-impressionist masters, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Henri Rousseau and the Fauves including Matisse and Derain.