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Le Coeur à gaz (The Gas-Operated Heart)

Le Coeur à gaz (The Gas-Operated Heart)

Artist: Sonia Delaunay Terk (French, born Ukraine, 1885-1979)
Publisher: Jacques Damase
Author: Tristan Tzara (French (born Romania), 1896-1963)
Date: 1977 (original designs 1923)
Dimensions:
Overall: 17 5/8 x 9 1/4 in. (447.68 x 234.95mm)
Medium: Book with color lithographs, plus an extra suite of lithographs; letterpress text
Place of Origin: Paris
Classification: Books
Credit Line: Purchased with funds given by the Toledo Modern Art Group
Object number: 2003.3A-J
Label Text:Painter, textile artist, ceramicist, furniture designer, color theorist, and influential fashion designer, Sonia Delaunay was a modern “renaissance” woman. She believed in the integration of art into all aspects of life and that color was the key to art. She practiced a theory known as Simultaneity, in which dissonant and harmonious colors, experienced simultaneously, set up rhythms and movement she believed were expressive of modern life.

In 1923 Delaunay was asked by avant-garde writer Tristan Tzara (1896–1963) to provide the costumes for a production of his absurdist play The Gas-Operated Heart. Designed to shock an audience expecting brilliance, the play consisted of tedious dialogue between the facial features (Nose, Mouth, Eye). Tzara described it as “…the greatest swindle of the century, it will bring luck only to the industrialized imbeciles who believe in the existence of geniuses.” Some of Delaunay’s fabric-covered cardboard costumes mocked and exaggerated stiff, formal evening clothes. Others were based on simultaneous colors and geometric shapes to create the effect of ever-changing motion. The costume designs are preserved here in these colorful lithographs that accompanied a luxury, limited-edition book of the play published in 1977.

DescriptionOne artist's book, containing the letterpress script and lithographs of the macquettes created for the 1923 performance of Tristan Tzara's play Le Coeur à gaz, along with an additional suite of lithographs.
Not on view
In Collection(s)