Bonhams 1793 : Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904-1989) Autoportrait, dédié à Federico García Lorca

Autoportrait, dédié à Federico García Lorca
signed 'Dalí' and inscribed 'Federico' (lower right)
pen and black ink on the reverse of an invoice
22.2 x 16cm (8 3/4 x 6 5/16in).
Executed in 1928

Sold for £43,250 inc. premium

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Anna-Maria Dalí, the artist's sister, Barcelona.
Joan Abelló i Prat, Barcelona.
Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 31 March 1982, lot 238.
Purchased from the above by the present owner.

EXHIBITED
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Salvador Dalí, Rétrospective 1920-1980, 18 December 1979-21 April 1980, no.6.
London, Tate Gallery, Salvador Dalí, 14 May-29 June 1980, no.8.

LITERATURE
L. Romero, Todo Dalí en un Rostro, Barcelona, 1975, no.393 (illustrated p.305).
R. Descharnes and G. Neret, Salvador Dalí, The Paintings, Volume I, 1904-1946, Cologne, 2007, no.270 (illustrated p.125).

Drawn in 1928, the present work was executed two years after Federico García Lorca published his passionate 'Oda a Salvador Dalí' in which he expressed his love for the artist. The two young Spaniards had formed a close friendship in the early 1920s, which soon developed into something more intense on the poet's side. Dali insisted that he rejected his friend's amorous advances, but the two remained inseparable until the artist met his future wife, Gala. The confused nature of the men's friendship was compounded by the artist's fondness for shocking people - upon being questioned about Lorca's death by firing squad during the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Dali controversially commented that 'it satisfied me deeply' (R. Descharnes and G. Neret, Salvador Dalí, The Paintings, Volume I, 1904-1946, Cologne, 2007, p.129).