Salvador Dalí

SALVADOR DALÍ I DOMÈNECH (Figueras, Girona, 1904 - 1989).
Untitled, 1966.
Ink on paper.
Signed, dated and dedicated to Miguel Utrillo.
Measurements: 20 x 24 cm; 26,5 x 31 cm (frame).

This drawing is an excellent example of the elaborate dedications that Dalí used to make for friends and acquaintances, turning a simple autograph into a small work of art full of symbolism and irony. The style is unmistakably Dalinian, characterized by a fast, fluid and confident pen stroke, with variations in the thickness of the line that add dynamism.

A nude woman, with long, flowing hair, rides a cartoonish-looking pig with a flat snout and spiraling tail. Her posture is regal and poised.In her right hand, she holds a royal orb (a sphere topped by a cross, the globus cruciger), a traditional symbol of divine or monarchical authority.

The pig is smelling a small flower sprouting from the ground, a detail that adds a touch of delicacy in contrast to the animal's nature.

This image could be a surreal parody of the classical myth of the "Rape of Europa" (where Zeus becomes a bull), replacing the noble bull with a pig, or simply an ironic juxtaposition of the sacred/noble (the orb, the woman) with the profane (the pig).

Painter and sculptor, Salvador Dalí was one of the leading exponents of the surrealist movement. He made his individual debut in 1925, at the Dalmau Galleries in Barcelona. In 1926, after being expelled from the San Fernando School of Fine Arts for indiscipline, he went to Paris. There he met the young Picasso and, four years later, he joined the surrealist movement. Dalí's production in this period is based on Freud's theories, acclaimed by Breton: representation of dreamlike images and everyday objects in unsuspected and surprising compositional forms. Some of the characteristics of his work at this time became distinctive of all his later work. He also absorbed the influences of diverse artistic styles, from classical academicism to the most groundbreaking avant-garde. His work greatly influenced the direction of surrealism during the following years, being acclaimed as the creator of the paranoiac-critical method, an essential combination of the real and the imaginary. As a result of his first individual exhibition in New York in 1934, his international projection was definitively consolidated. Most of his production is gathered in the Dalí Theatre-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.