Synopsis of Picasso and I:
The relationship between Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso was complex from the moment they first met in April 1926 in Paris. A young and promising Dalí fascinated by a Picasso already considered the contemporary master: theirs was a relationship of admiration and jealousy as they became intertwined in life. In the first Dalí, Picasso was almost an obsession, while the apparent disdain of the Malaga-born artist hid the curiosity that this young man from Figueres, gifted for painting, produced in him, until politics got in the way, with their opposing positions regarding the Spanish Civil War.
"Picasso and I" is the title of a well-known lecture in which Salvador Dalí spoke about the work of Pablo Picasso and thus gives title to this compilation of texts, including a unique postcard signed by Picasso to Dalí along with others texts that Dalí dedicated to the painter from Malaga and the statements of first-hand witnesses, which serve to reconstruct the story of their friendship, which for years was shrouded in clichés and legend.
About the author:
Salvador Dalí was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueres (Girona). In 1922 he began his studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid. From this period dates his friendship with the great Granada poet Federico García Lorca and the future surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel, with whom he shared accommodation at the Residencia de Estudiantes. At the end of the twenties, he traveled to Paris and came into contact with artists such as Picasso, Magritte and Miró, who guided him towards his first surrealist phase. In 1931 he held his first solo exhibition in France, at the Galerie Pierre Colle in Paris, where he exhibited one of his most famous works The Persistence of Memory, dated the same year, with one of his best-known images: the melting clocks in a coastal landscape.
Today, exhibitions of Salvador Dalí's works are events of international interest that attract thousands of visitors. From his first solo show, which took place in 1925 in Barcelona, to the present day, the world's most important museums continue to organize retrospectives of the artist that reveal the most interesting facets of his life and work.
References:
Editorial Elba: https://www.elbaeditorial.com/catalogo/libro/picasso-y-yo
Fundació Gala - Salvador Dalí. Biography of Salvador Dalí. https://www.salvador-dali.org/es/dali/bio-dali/