Jacques Zwobada

An eclectic artist with a restless spirit, Zwobada was a painter, sculptor and musician who won the gold medal at the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in 1925. He was also awarded the Legion of Honour in 1963, and some of his works are on display at the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

His earlier artistic production is grandiose in style, which can be seen in the gigantic equestrian monument to Simón Bolívar in Quito, Ecuador's capital, a work he created with René Letourneur.

After the 1940s, his art broke free of any references to reality and became lyrical and sensual, with sculptures portraying intertwined bodies composed of curves, painful spasms and abstract tensions of all-encompassing, loving embraces.

After Antonia's premature death, he dedicated his whole life and art to the celebration of their love in an effort to make it eternal. He never stopped portraying Antonia in pencil and charcoal drawings, as well as regularly forging her bust. He built her mausoleum in the Mentana cemetery to fulfil her final wish: to be buried away from the city, surrounded by sunlight and silence in the green Roman countryside.