Pal Sarkozy’s Wedding Gift to Carla Bruni

ABC's Christophe Schpoliansky reports from Paris: In the Sarkozy family, after the president, Nicolas, the former top-model-turned-singer, Carla, here is the painter, Pal. In April, the French president’s father, Pal Sarkozy, 82, will exhibit his works at a private upmarket Parisian gallery, the Espace Pierre Cardin, just a few feet away from the Elysée, the French presidential palace. In 2008, Pal exhibited his work at a Madrid gallery — a French magazine described his oeuvre as “neo-surrealism mixed with dreams and eroticism”. The star turn of the exhibition was a portrait of his son, President Sarkozy wearing the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest decoration, as… a earring. This time, the centerpiece will be a large canvas of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. It shows the artist’s daughter-in-law strumming guitar while seated on a varnished piano. The French president is seen in a chair in his office. The painting was Pal’s wedding present to Bruni-Sarkozy who is thought to have helped bring father and son closer after years of estrangement. Biographers have hinted at a difficult relationship between the French president and Pal who left Sarkozy’s mother when he was very young. Critics have mocked the kitsch canvases of Pal Sarkozy, but the former advertising designer still finds buyers for his works earning an estimated $11,000 per piece. At the Sarkozy family derivatives department counter, that is a bit more expensive than a Carla record.