Dalí. Victoria Charles

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      Self-Portrait

      c. 1921

      Oil on canvas, 36.8 × 41.8 cm

      Salvador Dalí Museum, St Petersburg (Florida)

      At about the same time as Salvador was receiving his first lessons from the brothers of the “La Salle” order, he set-up his first atelier in the old, disused washroom in the attic of his family home: “I placed my chair in the concrete basin and arranged the high-standing wooden board (that protects washerwomen’s clothing from the water) horizontally across it so that the basin was half covered. This was my workbench!”

      Festival at San Sebastián

      1921

      Gouache on cardboard, 52 × 75 cm

      Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Figueras

      Dalí’s oldest existing works date from the year 1914. They are small-format watercolors, landscape studies of the area around Figueras.

      Oil paintings by the eleven-year-old also exist, mostly as copies of masterpieces which he found in his father’s well-stocked collection of art books. For Salvador, the atelier became the “sanctuary” of his loneliness.

      Scene in Cabaret

      1922

      Oil on canvas, 52 × 41 cm

      Bénédicte Petit Collection, Paris

      In the laundry-room atelier the little king tried out a new costume: “I started to test myself and to observe; as I performed hilarious eye-winking antics accompanied by a subliminal spiteful smile, at the edge of my mind, I knew, vague as it was, that I was in the process of playing the role of a genius. Ah, Salvador Dalí! You know it now: if you play the role of a genius, you will also become one!”

      Family Scene

      1923

      Oil and gouache on coardboard, 105 × 75 cm

      Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Figueras

      Later Dalí analysed his behavior: “In order to wrest myself from my dead brother, I had to play the genius so as to ensure that at every moment I was not in fact him, that I was not dead; as such, I was forced to put on all sorts of eccentric poses.”

      Salvador’s attempts to distance himself from his dead brother went so far that he believed himself immortal. Descending the stairs one day at school, it suddenly occured to him that he should let himself fall.

      The Sick Child (Self-Portrait in Cadaqués)

      c. 1923

      Oil and gouache on cardboard, 57 × 51 cm

      Salvador Dalí Museum, St Petersburg (Florida)

      But at the very last moment fear held him back. However, he worked out a plan of action for the next day: “At the very moment I was descending the stairs with all my classmates, I did a fantastic leap into the void, and landing on the steps below bowled over and over until I finally reached the bottom. The effect on the other boys and the teachers who ran over to help me was enormous.”

      Satirical Composition (“The Dance” by Matisse)

      1923

      Gouache on cardboard, 138 × 105 cm

      Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Figueras

      The ability to attract the attention of the others, and to be subsequently admired by them afforded the little king Salvador untold enjoyment. However, he did prefer it when his “entourage” kept their distance. From his window in the laundry-room atelier he spied on the other children, particularly the schoolgirls from the neighboring school.

      Cubist Self-Portrait

      1923

      Gouache and collage on cardboard, 104.9 × 74.2 cm

      Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid

      In the summer of 1916, the twelve-year-old was sent on holiday to the estate of some family friends, the Pitchots. The “Mulí de la Torre” estate, named after its tower-mill, and just a few kilometers from Figueras, was to become a place of magic for Salvador. For weeks he gave himself up to his day-dreams undisturbed, a reverie for which he only had the odd single hour in Figueras in his laundry-room atelier. Most of his fantasies at this time were of an erotic nature. Eroticism and death become unified very early in Dalí’s life.

      Portrait of Ana María

      c. 1924

      Oil on cardboard, 55 × 75 cm

      Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Figueras

      From a net of fantasies centered around eroticism, death, and disgust, Dalí only managed to save himself by his own mental agility. During puberty, and wholly without any system, he began to read through his father’s extensive library. He occupied himself especially with the philosophers Voltaire, Nietzsche, Descartes, and Spinoza; but without doubt his favorite was Kant: “I loved very much to lose myself in the labyrinth of his avenues of thought, in which the ever expanding crystals of my youthful intelligence found true heavenly music reflected.”

      Portrait of Luis Buñuel

      1924

      Oil on canvas, 70 × 60 cm

      Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid