HELENE BAILLY is the Parisian art gallery that showcases works from the Orphism movement, notably by Robert and Sonia Delaunay.

Orphism is an avant-garde artistic movement that emerged in France in the early 1910s, on the fringes of Cubism. The term was coined in 1912 by the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, in reference to Orpheus, the mythological figure associated with music and poetry. Unlike so-called “scientific” Cubism, Orphism aimed to create pure painting, freed from representation, where color and light became the primary means of artistic expression.

The movement was led primarily by Robert and Sonia Delaunay, who sought to capture the energy of the modern world through circular forms and intense chromatic contrasts. Drawing inspiration from the optical effects of light and movement, the Orphists developed a visual language akin to music - fluid, vibrant, and emotional.

Although short-lived, Orphism had a lasting impact on the evolution of modern art by exploring the expressive power of color in its own right. This influence was recently celebrated in the major retrospective “Sonia Delaunay: Living Art,” presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York from November 8, 2024, to March 9, 2025, which highlighted Sonia Delaunay’s central role in developing this artistic language.