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Ode to Love

Carlos Cabral Nunes and his artists

In art as in love, everything starts with an encounter. It is this encounter that is at the origin of the most unforgettable artistic relationships. This Valentine’s Day, Singulart shares the most beautiful love stories from our exclusive partnership with the Perve Gallery in Lisbon. These stories are an ode to artistic love.

Indeed, our selection presents the paths of artists who are intimately linked and celebrates all forms of love in art. Sonia and Robert Delaunay alone embody great love but also what could be called “Orphic love”. Pablo Picasso and Wifredo Lam have a brotherly love for each other that has stimulated their artistic creations. Carlos Cabral Nunes, the curator and director of the Perve Gallery, also has a love for the artists he represents.

Through this article, discover the intimate links that unite the great masters that you can now find in our sale!

Sonia and Robert Delaunay: “Orphic love”.

Sonia and Robert Delaunay

Like Camille Claudel and Rodin or Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera, Sonia and Robert Delaunay lived a beautiful love story. Sonia Delaunay, born Sophie Stern, met Robert Delaunay in 1907. The young 22-year-old artist, who had arrived in Paris two years earlier, explored the artistic codes of Fauvism. This allowed her to express her taste for bright colours that exude a certain ‘oriental’ warmth. Robert Delaunay was a young painter who drew his inspiration from the Impressionist, Divisionist and Cubist artistic movements.

Both are fully in line with the Parisian Avant-Garde of the beginning of this century, both trying new art forms. Their meeting epitomized love at first sight, both in love and artistic. The two artists admired each other and devoted themselves to a passionate love. They quickly became inseparable and married three years later.

A Love Story

The two lovers evolved together, gradually moveing away from cubism to abstraction. However, they retain their particular inclination for polychromy. Thus, they create a dialogue between the primary and secondary colours that respond to each other through their works.

In this way, they invented their own artistic movement, based mainly on the constructive and dynamic power of colours. Guillaume Apollinaire names this “Orphisme”, in reference to his poem Orphée, which is intended to be a “luminous language”.

A Life of Art

The Delaunays dedicate their lives to art and continually create new works. Their Parisian workshop became their home where they devoted themselves fully to Orphism. Sonia also developed on many textile supports. The poet Apollinaire says of Sonia and Robert: “When they wake up, the Delaunays speak of painting”. Sonia Delaunay does not deny these remarks and describes her relationship with Robert as being intimately linked to art.

“We loved each other in art as other couples were united in faith, in crime, in alcohol, in political ambition. The passion for painting was our main bond”.

Sonia Delaunay

The mythical couple lived a life of art and love. Singulart invites you to plunge into the “orphic” loves of Sonia Delaunay through her exceptional work inspired by her textiles.

Wifredo Lam and Pablo Picasso: “Brotherly” Love

Pablo Picasso et Wifredo Lam

Did you know?… Wifredo Lam and Pablo Picasso, have maintained an artistic and friendly relationship for many years. Between them, they form a duo of artist friends who influence each other in their practices. Between Picasso and Lam, the story begins with a friendly love at first sight. People say the two artists built up an unfailing friendship over time.

Art and War

Lam and Picasso met in 1938 in Paris, in Picasso’s studio on rue des Grands-Augustins. The two men, from very different worlds, met in their fierce fight for freedom and artistic creation. Picasso denounced the horrors of the war by painting Guernica. Meanwhile Lam was inspired by it and came up with his own interpretation of the human drama with his painting La Jungla. In their own way, their two works reflect the commitment of each person to the freedom of their country.

Picasso embodies audacity in the eyes of Lam, who is overwhelmed by the work of the Spanish artist. The latter notably transmits to Lam his taste for African and Oceanic art, which he collects in his studio. The influence of African art in the paintings of the great master also fascinates Wifredo Lam, who also seeks to forge a unique aesthetic language blending his multiple origins.

Life-long friendships

Wifredo Lam and Pablo Picasso were in daily contact until the latter’s departure for the South of France. Picasso introduced his friends Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger and Georges Braque to the man he considered his ‘Cuban cousin’. Very protective, Picasso also found a workshop in the 15th arrondissement of Paris for his friend Lam.

The latter thus devoted himself to painting and became, partly thanks to the Spanish painter, an artistic revelation in Parisian circles. The fraternal friendship that unites the two painters nourished the artistic universe of Wifredo Lam, who continued to use his friend’s advice after leaving Europe. This fruitful friendship has, in every respect, marked the history of 20th century art.

Discover now the works of Pablo Picasso and Wifredo Lam available for sale on Singulart.

Carlos Cabral Nunes and Artists: Love (of art) in the Contemporary World

Carlos Cabral Nunes, Cruzeiro Seixas and Teresa Balté at Perve Gallery

“Art is the expression of love”, says Carlos Cabral Nunes, curator and founder of the Perve Galeria, with whom we are organising this exclusive sale. On the occasion of Valentine’s Day, we have taken the time to gather his perspective on forging friendships with artists he represents.

Carlos Cabral Nunes reveals in an interview a holistic vision of art and love. For him, artistic creation is a gesture of love. In this way, he intimately links art and love, which in his eyes are the expression of emotions and the gift of something of oneself. In the same way, both phenomena remain with us and transcend time. It is thus possible to draw many parallels between art and love, and it is filled with this feeling that the curator exercises his profession.

Relationships in Art

The relationship Carlos Cabral Nunes has established with Artur Bual is indicative of the love he has for those he brings to light in his gallery. He describes his encounter with Artur Bual as a “first love”, in that it is eternal and profound. The two contributed enormously to each other, despite their age difference (Carlos Cabral Nunes was in his twenties when he met Bual, who was just over 70 at the time). Beyond their intimate friendship, Cabral Nunes deeply admired Bual’s work and felt a great love for the painter’s works.

New Beginnings

It was after Bual’s death that Carlos Cabral Nunes launched his gallery project. Deeply affected by this loss, the curator explains that he wanted to prolong Bual’s work and find a space in which he could unveil his friend’s artistic legacy. Today, Perve gallery is the curator’s loving testimony to his artists.

It is these unique interpersonal relationships that animate the work of Carlos Cabral Nunes. The gallery owner, curator and friend, is extremely grateful for the work of each artist who has crossed his path, and for the trust they have placed in each other. Somewhere too, love dictates his work. Love for his artists, love for surrealism second and finally love for art as a whole.

We hope that these unique stories will inspire you on this Valentine’s Day, and are happy to celebrate love of all kinds through our sale. How about offering one of the works in the sale to your soul mate?