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Lot Essay
Nicolas and Olivier Descharnes have confirmed the authenticity of this work.
‘I have come to see you before visiting the Louvre”. “You’re quite right,” Picasso answered’ -Salvador Dalí
An exquisitely rendered portrait of one of Salvador Dalí’s early artistic heroes, Portrait de Picasso was executed circa 1930, one of the most important periods of the artist’s career. At this time, Dalí was becoming a central presence within the Surrealist group in Paris, having made his scandalous debut with his first one-man show there in the winter of 1929. In this portrait, Dalí has portrayed his idol and fellow Spaniard in the guise of Napoléon Bonaparte, adorned in a laurel wreath, with the inscription upon his lapel deferentially referring to the artist as ‘the Emperor’. This reverential homage to Picasso remained in Dalí’s collection until 1970, a reflection of its importance to the artist over the course of his long career.
Picasso had served as an influence on Dalí for many years, however, it was not until 1926, during the artist’s first trip to Paris, that he was finally able to meet him in person. ‘During this brief sojourn I did only three important things’, Dalí recalled. ‘I visited Versailles, the Musée Grevin, and Picasso. I was introduced to the latter by Manuel Angeles Ortiz, a cubist painter of Granada, who followed Picasso’s work to within a centimetre’. Dalí went to Picasso’s studio filled with an expectant, deferential awe. ‘When I arrived at Picasso’s on Rue de la Boétie I was as deeply moved and as full of respect as though I were having an audience with the Pope. “I have come to see you,” I said, “before visiting the Louvre”. “You’re quite right,” he answered’. Dalí showed Picasso a carefully chosen painting – The Girl of Ampurdán of 1926 – to which the artist did not comment but simply observed. After this, Picasso showed the admiring young Dalí the works in his studio: ‘he went to fetch others among an infinity of canvases stacked in rows against the wall... At each new canvas he cast me a glance filled with a vivacity and an intelligence so violent that it made me tremble. I left him without having made the slightest comment either. At the end…just as I was about to leave we exchanged a glance which meant exactly, “You get the idea?” “I get it!”’ (Dalí, quoted in R. Descharnes & G. Néret, Salvador Dalí, 1904-1989, The Paintings, vol. I, Cologne, 1994, pp. 131-132).
Picasso would remain supportive of Dalí in his early years in Paris, serving as a kind of father figure to the young artist. ‘Dalí revered Picasso’, John Richardson has written. ‘Picasso did not revere Dalí, but he was much amused by him and impressed by the virtuosity of this Catalan clown’ (J. Richardson, A Life of Picasso: Volume III, The Triumphant Years, 1917- 1932, London, 2007, p. 394). At this time, Picasso was the undisputed leader of the avant-garde art world of Paris, his effortless, unceasing stylistic innovation ensuring that he maintained his pioneering, indomitable status among his peers. Lauded by the Surrealists, Picasso was at this time increasingly involved in the Surrealist circle, with his work showing a clear embrace of their ideals. After the succès de scandale of Dalí’s first one-man show at the Goemans Gallery in Paris in November 1929, which included some of his greatest and most shocking works, Le jeu lugubre and Le grand masturbateur, Picasso, competitive and keenly aware of artistic developments in Paris, felt challenged, impelled to pursue and make known his own, distinctive form of Surrealism, which was, like so much of his art, based not on the automatic, hallucinatory realm of the subconscious which typified Breton’s form of Surrealism, but on the power that could be garnered from the exploration of reality.
In the present work, Dalí has, while creating a homage to Picasso, also placed himself in a shared artistic allegiance with his great hero. Like Picasso, Dalí had an outstanding ability as a draughtsman visible in his work from an early age. Following the years of the First World War, Picasso had made a remarkable volte-face in his art, turning away from the fragmented, faceted avant-garde aesthetic of Cubism, to instead embrace a graceful, naturalistic idiom inspired by Ingres. Following in the style of the great French master, Picasso executed a number of line drawings, as well as monumental portraits. Dalí has used this Neo-Classical, Ingres-esque style in the Portrait de Picasso, thereby linking himself to this esteemed lineage of artists, each of which shared an outstanding ability as draughtsmen. Indeed, with his open shirt collar and the wide lapel of his jacket, the artist looks as if he is one of the host of distinguished male sitters that Ingres captured in his art. More than simply emulating the skill and style of Picasso and Ingres however, Dalí has presented Picasso as the figure of the Emperor Napoleon, the subject of one of Ingres’ most famous paintings: Portrait de Napoléon Ier sur le trone imperial en costume de sacre (1806, Musée de l’Armée, Paris). Hailing the older artist as an emperor, this small yet powerful portrait demonstrates Dalí’s complete, almost obsequious devotion to Picasso, while simultaneously showcasing his mastery of draughtsmanship that linked him to this revered artist.
By the mid-1930s, the friendship between Dalí and Picasso had begun to cool. Though in 1934, he paid for Dalí and Gala to travel for their first visit to America, from this time onwards their respect for one another would diminish, something that would be exacerbated by their divergent political sympathies in the Spanish Civil War. This difference is marked visually by a second portrait of Picasso that the artist painted in 1947. In stark contrast to the admiring homage that is Portrait de Picasso, in this later portrait, now in the Fundació Gala- Salvador Dalí, Figueres, Dalí, who believed that Picasso had done more to destroy than to create art, has portrayed the artist as the embodiment of everything he had come to revile in him. Finally, in 1951, Dalí made this conclusive statement on their parting of ways: ‘Towards the genius, Picasso, I am nothing but grateful; for his Cubism – vital for my aestheticism, for having loaned me money for my first visit to America – vital for my fortune, for his anarchism, for my monarchism’ (Dalí, quoted in M. Etherington-Smith, Dalí, A Biography, London, 1992, p. 362).
‘I have come to see you before visiting the Louvre”. “You’re quite right,” Picasso answered’ -Salvador Dalí
An exquisitely rendered portrait of one of Salvador Dalí’s early artistic heroes, Portrait de Picasso was executed circa 1930, one of the most important periods of the artist’s career. At this time, Dalí was becoming a central presence within the Surrealist group in Paris, having made his scandalous debut with his first one-man show there in the winter of 1929. In this portrait, Dalí has portrayed his idol and fellow Spaniard in the guise of Napoléon Bonaparte, adorned in a laurel wreath, with the inscription upon his lapel deferentially referring to the artist as ‘the Emperor’. This reverential homage to Picasso remained in Dalí’s collection until 1970, a reflection of its importance to the artist over the course of his long career.
Picasso had served as an influence on Dalí for many years, however, it was not until 1926, during the artist’s first trip to Paris, that he was finally able to meet him in person. ‘During this brief sojourn I did only three important things’, Dalí recalled. ‘I visited Versailles, the Musée Grevin, and Picasso. I was introduced to the latter by Manuel Angeles Ortiz, a cubist painter of Granada, who followed Picasso’s work to within a centimetre’. Dalí went to Picasso’s studio filled with an expectant, deferential awe. ‘When I arrived at Picasso’s on Rue de la Boétie I was as deeply moved and as full of respect as though I were having an audience with the Pope. “I have come to see you,” I said, “before visiting the Louvre”. “You’re quite right,” he answered’. Dalí showed Picasso a carefully chosen painting – The Girl of Ampurdán of 1926 – to which the artist did not comment but simply observed. After this, Picasso showed the admiring young Dalí the works in his studio: ‘he went to fetch others among an infinity of canvases stacked in rows against the wall... At each new canvas he cast me a glance filled with a vivacity and an intelligence so violent that it made me tremble. I left him without having made the slightest comment either. At the end…just as I was about to leave we exchanged a glance which meant exactly, “You get the idea?” “I get it!”’ (Dalí, quoted in R. Descharnes & G. Néret, Salvador Dalí, 1904-1989, The Paintings, vol. I, Cologne, 1994, pp. 131-132).
Picasso would remain supportive of Dalí in his early years in Paris, serving as a kind of father figure to the young artist. ‘Dalí revered Picasso’, John Richardson has written. ‘Picasso did not revere Dalí, but he was much amused by him and impressed by the virtuosity of this Catalan clown’ (J. Richardson, A Life of Picasso: Volume III, The Triumphant Years, 1917- 1932, London, 2007, p. 394). At this time, Picasso was the undisputed leader of the avant-garde art world of Paris, his effortless, unceasing stylistic innovation ensuring that he maintained his pioneering, indomitable status among his peers. Lauded by the Surrealists, Picasso was at this time increasingly involved in the Surrealist circle, with his work showing a clear embrace of their ideals. After the succès de scandale of Dalí’s first one-man show at the Goemans Gallery in Paris in November 1929, which included some of his greatest and most shocking works, Le jeu lugubre and Le grand masturbateur, Picasso, competitive and keenly aware of artistic developments in Paris, felt challenged, impelled to pursue and make known his own, distinctive form of Surrealism, which was, like so much of his art, based not on the automatic, hallucinatory realm of the subconscious which typified Breton’s form of Surrealism, but on the power that could be garnered from the exploration of reality.
In the present work, Dalí has, while creating a homage to Picasso, also placed himself in a shared artistic allegiance with his great hero. Like Picasso, Dalí had an outstanding ability as a draughtsman visible in his work from an early age. Following the years of the First World War, Picasso had made a remarkable volte-face in his art, turning away from the fragmented, faceted avant-garde aesthetic of Cubism, to instead embrace a graceful, naturalistic idiom inspired by Ingres. Following in the style of the great French master, Picasso executed a number of line drawings, as well as monumental portraits. Dalí has used this Neo-Classical, Ingres-esque style in the Portrait de Picasso, thereby linking himself to this esteemed lineage of artists, each of which shared an outstanding ability as draughtsmen. Indeed, with his open shirt collar and the wide lapel of his jacket, the artist looks as if he is one of the host of distinguished male sitters that Ingres captured in his art. More than simply emulating the skill and style of Picasso and Ingres however, Dalí has presented Picasso as the figure of the Emperor Napoleon, the subject of one of Ingres’ most famous paintings: Portrait de Napoléon Ier sur le trone imperial en costume de sacre (1806, Musée de l’Armée, Paris). Hailing the older artist as an emperor, this small yet powerful portrait demonstrates Dalí’s complete, almost obsequious devotion to Picasso, while simultaneously showcasing his mastery of draughtsmanship that linked him to this revered artist.
By the mid-1930s, the friendship between Dalí and Picasso had begun to cool. Though in 1934, he paid for Dalí and Gala to travel for their first visit to America, from this time onwards their respect for one another would diminish, something that would be exacerbated by their divergent political sympathies in the Spanish Civil War. This difference is marked visually by a second portrait of Picasso that the artist painted in 1947. In stark contrast to the admiring homage that is Portrait de Picasso, in this later portrait, now in the Fundació Gala- Salvador Dalí, Figueres, Dalí, who believed that Picasso had done more to destroy than to create art, has portrayed the artist as the embodiment of everything he had come to revile in him. Finally, in 1951, Dalí made this conclusive statement on their parting of ways: ‘Towards the genius, Picasso, I am nothing but grateful; for his Cubism – vital for my aestheticism, for having loaned me money for my first visit to America – vital for my fortune, for his anarchism, for my monarchism’ (Dalí, quoted in M. Etherington-Smith, Dalí, A Biography, London, 1992, p. 362).