The Embrace II

What you are looking at

A man and a woman hold each other tightly against a black background. She leans into him with her eyes closed, her cheek pressed to his chest, her dark hair pulled back and a gold hoop earring catching the light. He bows his head over her, eyes closed too, one large hand spread across her back. Both are dressed in black, so their bodies merge into a single dark shape, and the only light falls on their faces, his hand, a white shirt cuff and her bare arm.

The Embrace II is by Fabián Pérez, a painter born in Buenos Aires in 1967 who has lived in Italy and Japan and is based in California. It belongs to a group of paintings of couples that Pérez has returned to many times, and it circulates widely as limited-edition prints on canvas and paper. The original's date, size and current owner are not documented in sources we could verify.

The style

Pérez's work is instantly recognizable: dramatic, theatrical lighting against black, figures in evening clothes, and a mood borrowed from tango halls, film noir and late-night bars. His father ran nightclubs in Buenos Aires, and the artist has said that the atmosphere of those places shaped his imagery. Many of his paintings show solitary men with cigarettes or women in red dresses; the embraces are among his most popular subjects.

Looking closely

The composition is all about touch. Notice how much of the picture is taken up by the man's hand: it is painted larger and in more detail than anything else, the knuckles and fingers modeled with warm highlights. Her arm wraps under his, and her fingers grip his sleeve. The closed eyes matter too; neither of them looks at us, so the viewer is an outsider to a private moment.

The light is the kind used on a stage, coming from above and to the left, so it rakes across foreheads and noses and leaves the rest in shadow. The almost monochrome palette, black, skin tones and a little white, makes that light the subject.

Reception

Pérez's paintings are popular and commercially successful, sold through galleries and as editions rather than shown in museums. Admirers value their emotional directness; critics place them closer to illustration and decorative art. Either way, they draw on a long tradition of painted lovers, from Francesco Hayez's The Kiss to the embracing couples of Gustav Klimt.

Where to see it

There is no public collection holding this work. See more on the Fabián Pérez page.