11 famous families where the husband supported his wife, not competed with her - and both succeeded

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

There is a popular opinion that two creative people will never get along with each other, they will argue and compete for fame. Therefore, they say, only artists and writers are at least somewhat known, for whose support the wives spent their whole lives. But history refutes many myths. For example, many couples are known where a creative husband and wife supported each other and achieved serious success in their field.

Julia Drunina and Alexey Kapler

Although the name of Kapler was out of earshot, as soon as he named films based on his scripts, any Soviet citizen was imbued with sympathy for him - after all, among his works were such films as "Striped Flight", "Amphibian Man" and "Blue Bird ". A narrower circle knew Alexei as a front-line correspondent and beloved of Stalin's daughter, who was even imprisoned for contacting her: Stalin was a very jealous father.

Yulia Drunina, on the other hand, was a poetess who, according to many, “advanced” too quickly for her age - she was eagerly published and invited to creative evenings. Many colleagues in the shop in her face obscenely explained to her what front-line merits and to whom she gets her fame - after all, Yulia was a nurse during the war, and after the war the myth spread that women at the front did nothing but romance. It was only unclear because of what novels Julia was seriously wounded. Miraculously not to death.

Many thought that by marrying a beloved man, Julia would “calm down,” “come to his senses,” and turn into an ordinary housewife. After all, for sure, there were simply problems with the previous husband - she could not realize herself as a wife. But Julia had her own plans, and Alexei supported them. He was in love with her talent as much as he was with her.

I was always worried after the release of a new edition, went around the shops in Moscow and asked to buy more copies of her new book - they say, if it doesn't sell well, he himself will buy everything. There was no need to redeem, Drunina's poems touched many, willingly bought up. Alexei defended Yulia from many everyday problems, and if she happened to go abroad, he was sure to meet later at the place of arrival, and not at home in Moscow. Who knows how many of Drunina's poems we would have lost if Kapler had used her feelings in order to oust a "normal woman" from her.

Thanks to the support of her husband, she became a famous writer and Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein. Her marriage to the poet Percy Shelley was not as touching and cloudless as that of Drunina and Kapler, but it was Percy, who saw Mary's story, insisted that she finish it to a full-fledged novel, because he immediately realized that before him was a potential creation for centuries.

Laura and Lawrence Alma-Tadema

In the nineteenth century, many girls got the opportunity to study painting professionally, but after marriage, as a rule, after another artist, almost all abandoned art. The husband demanded support and worship, everyday life and children consumed all the time and energy. The case of Laura and Lawrence is one of the few unique for its time.

Despite the fact that Lawrence and Laura met at the Pre-Raphaelite meetings, both preferred the academic style of painting. He was already a famous artist, a widower with two children, she is no more than one of many aspiring artists. Everything could very easily have gone according to the usual scenario. But Lawrence considered it a sin to bury Laura's talent. He first became her teacher, and then - not just a husband, but literally a support.

Lawrence always insisted that his wife's works be present at his exhibitions, and never rubbed her away from human attention when meetings of artists began to take place in his house. Laura was in very poor health, and Lawrence used most of his royalties to free her from everyday life and take her to warmer regions.

The spouses inspired each other: Lawrence more than once portrayed his wife in his paintings, and Laura, due to her husband's origin, was carried away by Holland and Dutch painting and often, in a more modern manner, scenes from the life of the seventeenth century Dutch.

If we recall other pairs of artists, then these will be the spouses Delaunay, the creators of the Orphism style, the Pre-Raphaelites Dante Gabriel Rosseti and Elizabeth Siddal and the singer of the Russian north Gianna Tutunjan, whose husband, a typical socialist realist Nikolai Baskakov, did not try to satisfy ambitions at the expense of his wife and shared concerns with her. about home and children in half. The couple Tatyana Mavrina (winner of the Andersen Prize) and her husband, the popular book illustrator of the thirties and fifties, Nikolai Kuzmin, have always believed in each other.

Pierre Curie and Maria Sklodowska-Curie

Although the legendary physicists in everyday life looked very serious and ascetic, and it might have seemed to many that Pierre had married Mary in order to use her intellect, and Mary had married Pierre for the sake of access to the laboratory and the scientific world, in fact, the couple dearly loved each other and their own children, who, by the way, also grew up to be outstanding people.

To equip that very laboratory, the Curies denied themselves everything, hence the severity of their life and appearance. But the simplicity of life did not depress them. They even decided for a wedding instead of a lavish celebration to spend money on buying bicycles and travel around France together. Both of them really liked this honeymoon.

When Pierre realized that his wife's research was more promising, he did not hesitate to move to her assistants instead of taking over both her work and possible fame. In the scientific community, he was welcomed, trying to ignore his wife as just a free laboratory assistant, but Pierre firmly showed his respect to Maria and never hid the fact that she was an outstanding scientist. His death was a real tragedy for Mary.

Astrophysicists Cecilia Payne and Sergei Gaposhkin had a similar relationship. They were both in love with the sky and worked shoulder to shoulder. It never occurred to Sergei to compete with his beloved, to try to show her her feminine place and similar nonsense. As a result, they both entered the history of astrophysics - mainly due to Cecilia.

Karin and Karl Larsson

The Swedish painter Larsson is known, despite many other works, for his series of watercolors about the Solar House - the house where his family and himself lived. The interiors depicted are considered antecedents to the modern Scandinavian style, for their time they are innovative, but even now they look very impressive and fresh. In addition, life is felt in these interiors - they are not admired, but used. And the artist, and his wife, and their children.

Although on the Russian Internet, Karl Larsson is called the inventor of the Scandinavian style for these paintings, in fact, he devoted all these works to capture the impressive work and talent of his wife Karin - after all, then there were no color photographs, interior magazines and a good opportunity for a woman to become famous as a designer.

Like Karl, Karin was originally an artist, but painting was clearly not her destiny. Karl was from a very poor family, suffered in childhood physical abuse from his father and suffered from depression. Karin, on the other hand, was from a wealthy and loving family. When her parents gave the young a house, Karin enthusiastically set about arranging it in a real palace of happiness and then showed her true talent.

All furnishings in the house are made according to her sketches and are often painted or decorated by herself. She even weaved textiles with her own hands. Karl not only felt like he was in paradise - he was really shocked by his wife's talent and for many years painted her design findings, bringing Karin's art to people. This house was really very supportive of the artist.

A similar union was between the children's writers Anne-Katharina Westly and her husband Johan. Of course, children would have liked her books without illustrations, but Johan created images of Anna-Katarina's heroes, which became classics, treating with great attention to every detail of the text. He considered his wife very talented and did not hesitate to tell her about it. She answered her beloved husband in the same way.

Another inspiring union of two successful people in their professions - Boris Khmelnitsky and Larisa Galaktionova: Unfinished novel by Robin Hood and his unmarried wife.