Salvador Dalí

SALVADOR DALÍ (Figueres, Girona, 1904–1989).
“Le roi de trèfle” (The King of Clubs), 1967.
Study for a deck of cards.
Colored crayons and black marker on tracing paper.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Certificates of authenticity issued by Robert and Nicolas Descharnes are included.
Measurements: 40 x 27 cm; 74 x 60 cm (frame).

Created in 1967, this original work on paper belongs to a unique phase of Salvador Dalí’s oeuvre, dedicated to the artistic reinterpretation of traditional playing cards. That year, the artist developed a series of designs for a deck of cards commissioned by the prestigious Parisian silverware firm Puiforcat and printed by Draeger, bringing his surrealist imagination into the realm of the applied arts. The significance of this collection is attested to by the presence of copies of the deck at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, an institution that also featured preparatory drawings from the Puiforcat collection in its 1970–1971 exhibition dedicated to Dalí. Likewise, Christie’s has documented other original studies from the series, including a composition dedicated to the king of clubs.

This work depicts the King of Clubs through a symmetrical and reversible composition, faithful to the traditional structure of playing cards, though profoundly transformed by the artist’s imagination. The crowned figure, with a barely sketched face, wears attire constructed from geometric shapes, concentric circles, and intersecting diagonal bands. The intense blues, reds, greens, and yellows, outlined by thick black strokes, create a vibrant play of colors with Cubist overtones. The fragmentation of the forms and the stylization of the royal attributes reveal Dalí’s ability to transform a conventional motif into a highly modern image. Its status as a study allows one to appreciate the spontaneity of the drawing and the artist’s creative process.

The work comes with certificates of authenticity issued by Robert and Nicolas Descharnes. The latter, a close collaborator of the painter for decades, was one of his principal biographers and a key authority on the cataloging of his artistic output.

A leading figure in Surrealism, Salvador Dalí trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid and joined the Parisian Surrealist movement in the late 1920s. His paranoiac-critical method and his universe of dreamlike images contributed decisively to the renewal of the language of the avant-garde. Beginning in the 1940s, he expanded his explorations into classicism, science, religion, and the applied arts, developing a body of work that encompasses painting, drawing, sculpture, film, design, and graphic art. His work is represented in institutions such as MoMA in New York, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, as well as the Dalí Theater-Museum in Figueres.