This exhibition had its genesis in the work started by the painter Paulo Ferreira, who collected in book form the correspondence exchanged between the Delaunays and the Portuguese artists Eduardo Viana, Amadeo de Sousa Cardoso, Almada Negreiros and José Pacheco, analysing their friendship relations and their influences as colleagues.

It was Paulo Ferreira himself who proposed to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG) the organisation of an exhibition focusing on these artists. The project was warmly welcomed by the Foundation, which promptly expressed its “full accord, not only for the intrinsic value of those painters, but also for the influence they held on the evolution of the Portuguese artistic milieu in the early decades of this century” (Sonia and Robert Delaunay…, 1972).

The support of Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) was indeed paramount in the putting up of the exhibition, an initiative which she “embraced with enthusiasm” having lent an important number of pieces to be displayed. (ibid.)

This show brought together works belonging to several national and international collections, public and private: Musée de Grenoble, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Musée de Montpellier, Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea (Lisbon), Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisboa), Sonia Delaunay Collection, Jorge de Brito Collection (Cascais), Galeria de São Mamede Collection  (Lisbon), Carlos Ramos Collection (Lisbon), Secretaria de Estado da Informação e Turismo Collection (Lisbon), Pinto Figueiredo Collection (Lisbon), Louis Carré Collection (Paris), Pierre Berès Collection (Paris), among others. 

The objective of this exhibition, whose narrative was intended be organized “under the sign of friendship” (Sonia e Robert Delaunay…, 1972), was to present Sonia and Robert Delaunay’s artistic production referring to the period when the couple settled in Portugal (Viana do Castelo, 1915-1917), in direct confrontation with the works “painted in the same period and under the same Minho sky, by their fellow painters Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso and Eduardo Viana” and with works by their friends Almada Negreiros and José Pacheco (ibid.).