Lost etchings by Spanish painter Salvador Dalí have been found in the garage of a home in London, England. According to Hansons Richmond, the auction house that announced the discovery on August 27th, the drawings had been hidden for half a century.

Chris Kirkham, Hansons’ director, said he found the works by chance. “I was invited to assess some antiques at a client’s home. During the visit the vendor took me to his garage and, lo and behold, out came this treasure trove of surrealist lithographs – all 15 of them”, he said. The collection includes 10 illustrations by Dalí and five by Théo Tobiasse, a French painter and sculptor. The prints, which depict mythological scenes in a surrealist style, are thought to have been bought at a London gallery clearance in the 1970s. As time passed, they were forgotten.

At the time, all the prints would have cost close to 500 euros (approximately 3,600 reais). Today, they could be auctioned off and fetch over 30,000 reais each.

Dalí and Surrealism

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), who was born in Paris, France in 1924, was the most relevant exponent of surrealism – one of the European modernist movements. Also present in literature, surrealism values forms and features that refer back to dreams and the imagination, such as melted clocks, geometrically-shaped people, and elements of nature that merge with fictional beings. 

Some of Dali’s most famous surrealist works include “The Persistence of Memory” (1931), “Metamorphosis of Narcissus” (1937), and “Birth of a Divinity” (1960). Besides being a painter, Dalí was also a writer and producer of audiovisual works, who always brought imagination to his creations. 

Glossary:

Modernism: a set of artistic expressions that emerged in Europe between the end of the 19th century and the middle of the 20th century. It is present in architecture, sculpture, literature, theater, design, music, and painting. The movement developed through the so-called European avant-gardes, which include Futurism, Cubism, Surrealism, Dadaism, and Expressionism. 

Sources: CNN, Hansons Richmond, DasArtes, Arte que Acontece, Brasil Escola, and Escritório de Arte

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