Nicolas Sarkozy’s father has painted the French President’s lover Carla Bruni on a large canvas as a wedding gift for the former supermodel, who has been instrumental in bringing the father and son closer after years of estrangement.
The canvas was a wedding gift for Carla, described by
82-year-old Pal Sarkozy as an “adorable girl”. He recently admitted in Le Figaro Magazine his painting career had been given a huge boost by his famous son, whose position “helps me enormously”.
“There is a rose on the piano,” Pal was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph while promoting the show, “as a symbol of the openness of Nicolas to the political Left, but also an emblem of love.”
The centrepiece will be a large canvas of the former supermodel and singer strumming a guitar while seated on a piano while her husband is featured nearby at his desk, according to the report.
The French president married Carla after a whirlwind romance in 2008.
Even as critics have often mocked the kitsch canvases of senior Sarkozy, a former advertising designer, the rise of his famous son will ensure that his huge paintings will grace the select Espace Pierre Cardin in a one-man show in April.
Many of his works feature naked women against surrealist backdrops.
According to biographers, the President had a very uneasy relationship with his father, who abandoned his mother and her three sons when Nicolas was five.
He once famously told his young son, whose school marks were mediocre, that: “With the name you carry and the results you obtain, you will never succeed in France.”