Cuatro mujeres de pescadores en Cadaqués (Four Fishermen's Wives in Cadaqués)

When Salvador Dalí settled in Paris in 1928, there was a noticeable change in his artistic universe, because the moment he arrived he came into contact with the Surrealists. To begin with, he combined paintings that leant towards figuration with others that were almost completely abstract. The latter show the influence of the work of Jean Arp and Yves Tanguy, although one can also make out the first indications of the sexual obsessions that would dominate his later output. This period gave rise to pieces such as Cuatro mujeres de pescadores de Cadaqués (Four Fishermen's Wives in Cadaqués), Composición abstracta (Abstract Composition) and Sin título (Untitled), all dated 1928 and all belonging to the Museo Reina Sofía. In reference to these two types of works, Dalí said: “[...] I have painted these two pictures at the same time: the ultra-concrete and the ultra-abstract. Both on the same subject: eroticism, the heterosexual anguish of the perverse polymorph [...].”

Paloma Esteban Leal