Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery presents Liens d’Amour, the final piece created by Sophia Vari, opening on 20 May 2026, three years after the artist’s passing.
The exhibition celebrates Vari’s legacy through her last wearable sculpture, conceived shortly before her death.
Completed in 2023, Liens d’Amour is a necklace made of ebony, 18kt yellow gold, and vivid orange-red coral. Produced in an edition of three, plus two artist’s proofs, the work encapsulates the sculptural vocabulary that defined Vari’s career, translated into a portable form that maintains the ambition, material presence, and formal integrity of her large-scale sculptures.
One of the most technically complex works Vari ever realised, Liens d’Amour required over six months of development to achieve controlled mobility. Its sophisticated construction allows the wearable sculpture to move fluidly on the body, reflecting her lifelong exploration of balance, gravity, and motion.
For the first time, the exhibition presents the complete creative process behind the work, including the plastiline prototype modelled by Vari shortly before she was hospitalised, alongside her original drawings and maquettes. These materials offer rare insight into her working process and artistic discipline during the final phase of her life.
Departing from her customary references to mythology, Greek dances, and islands, Vari titled this final work Liens d’Amour (Links of Love). The title evokes connection, continuity, and enduring bonds, resonating today as a reflection on artistic legacy and transmission.
In addition to Liens d’Amour, the exhibition presents a curated selection of approximately twenty works, situating her final necklace within the broader context of her creative practice. While her jewellery has often been discussed in relation to her sculpture, a significant number of these wearable works also originate in Vari’s collage paintings – compositions in which she explored rhythmic structures, colour relationships, and formal tensions that were later translated into three-dimensional form.
As recalled by her daughter, Vari explored materials such as cork, gold, marble, resin, epoxy, titanium, wood, coral, precious stones, silver, and vermeil with joy and meticulous care, considering both the visual impact and the wearability of each piece.
The selection spans from the late 1990s through 2023 and features both unique works and pieces from limited editions of six, of which only a few remain available. While a small number of works were entirely crafted by her hand, the pieces on view highlight her inventive approach to proportion, texture, and movement. Together, they reveal the connections between Vari’s collage, sculptural language, and her intimate wearable forms, offering insight into her artistic vision and into how Liens d’Amour resonates within the continuum of her work.
Liens d’Amour stands as both a conclusion and a continuation, affirming Sophia Vari’s enduring contribution to sculpture and wearable art, and the living dialogue her work continues to sustain.
More about Sophia Vari
Vari, Greece 1940 – Monaco 2023
Celebrated with nearly 125 solo exhibitions over the course of her career, Sophia Vari’s museum exhibitions include Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy; Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, Italy; The Ludwig Museum, Koblenz, Germany; and more recently, the Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey. Solo exhibitions of her monumental sculptures in public spaces have taken place in cities including London, Paris, Rome, Montecarlo, Baden-Baden, Geneva, Pietrasanta, Athens, Madrid, Miami, Cartagena de Indias, and New York (Park Avenue).
Vari’s work is represented in international public collections around the world, including Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague; Benaki Museum, Athens; Fondation Veranneman, Kruishoutem, Belgium; Foundation Basil and Elise Goulandris: Museum of Modern Art, Andros, Greece; Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; Fundación Botero, Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogota; Musée de la Main, Lausanne, France; Museo de Medellin, Medellin, Colombia; Museo de Ponce, Puerto Rico; National Museum and Alexandros Soultzos Museum, Athens; and the National Pinacotheca, Athens.
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