Salvador Dalí

SALVADOR DALÍ I DOMÈNECH (Figueres, Girona, 1904 - 1989).
"Pujols by Dalí" 1974
Marker pen on cardboard.
Signed and dated in pencil.
Attached certificate issued by Archives Descharnes. Ref D7773
With Christie's label on the back.
Measurements: 77 x 56,2 cm; 104,5 x 83,5 cm (frame).

In this original drawing, made in 1974, Salvador Dalí pays homage to the figure of the Catalan philosopher Francesc Pujols, to whom he professed a deep admiration throughout his life. The composition revolves around a central typographic construction that reads "PUJOLS PER DALÍ", resolved by means of a complex network of letters that intertwine and transform into organic, almost sculptural forms.

The artist deploys here a graphic language characteristic of his late production, in which writing ceases to be a mere vehicle of communication to become an autonomous image. The letters, endowed with sinuous volumes and tops that evoke bones or anatomical structures, refer to some of the recurring motifs of Dalí's imaginary, such as metamorphosis and the ambiguity between the organic and the symbolic.

Around the central nucleus, Dalí arranges different calligraphic variants of characters, as if it were a formal repertoire or a visual laboratory. This resource underlines his interest in typographic experimentation and in the plastic dimension of the sign.

The work is part of a period in which Dalí freely explores drawing and calligraphy, giving rise to compositions of great freshness and immediacy. Beyond its playful appearance, the piece contains a cultural vindication: the exaltation of Pujols as a key figure of Catalan thought, elevated here through a visual language as personal as it is recognizable.

Painter and sculptor, Salvador Dalí was one of the leading exponents of the surrealist movement. His work greatly influenced the course of surrealism during the twenties and thirties, being acclaimed as the creator of the paranoiac-critical method, an essential combination of the real with the imaginary. Most of his production is gathered in the Dalí Theater-Museum in Figueras, followed by the collection of the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg (Florida), the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Salvador Dalí Gallery in Pacific Palisades (California), the Espace Dalí in Montmartre (Paris) or the Dalí Universe in London.