Home » News » The paintings of Dalí, Picasso and Miró cost a thousand pesetas in Tenerife | Radio Club Tenerife

The paintings of Dalí, Picasso and Miró cost a thousand pesetas in Tenerife | Radio Club Tenerife

“I know there will always be an island in the distance as long as I live”, wrote André Bretón in The communicating vessels. Tenerife hosted the Second International Surrealism Exhibition at the Athenaeum in the spring of 1935. It was the first time that the works of the School of Paris were shown in Spain. “Nothing was sold. Miró’s paintings were worth a thousand pesetas in Tenerife and not one was sold“says Carmensa de la Hoz, curator for years of two of the greatest exponents of art in the Canary Islands: César Manrique and Pepe Dámaso.

“Breton wrote The starry castle Y The crazy love“explains the curator. A relief by Hans Arp cost 600 pesetas. The mythical Aircraft catcher garden by Max Ernst was worth 1,500 pesetas and it was possible to take home The free inclination of desire by Salvador Dalí for about 1,250 pesetas. “Any astute collector would have made the investment of his life,” explains writer Alexis Ravelo.

Jacqueline Lamba and André Bretón in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (1935) / Government of the Canary Islands

“On that occasion, the Ateneo exhibited seventy-six works by authors such as Óscar Domínguez himself, Giacometti, Dora Maar, Picasso, Miró, Hans Arp, From Chirico, Max Ernst, Magritte, Tanguy o Man Ray, guarded in person by André Bretón, Jacqueline Lamba and Benjamín Peret “, explains Alexis Ravelo in the prologue of his brilliant edition of Crime, the “cursed” book by Agustín Espinosa.

“André Bretón came with Jacqueline Lamba, his wife. Benjamín Péret and Agustín Espinosa came, who was the translator of all of them. They came on a fruit cargo ship“affirms Carmensa de la Hoz. It was the San Carlos,” one imagines those works, packed in wooden boxes, occupying the space in a winery that on the return trip to France would house boxes of bananas“explains Ravelo.

Listen to Interview with Carmensa de la Hoz in Hoy por Hoy Tajaraste in Play SER

In fact, a large painting by Picasso was seriously damaged in transit, with a perforation in the shape of a seven that would be restored years later in Paris. Days before the opening of the exhibition, André Bretón published an article in The afternoon titled, Greetings to Tenerife: “Upon arriving in Tenerife I washed my hands with a common soap that resembles lapis lazuli. I have washed my hands from all over Europe,” said Bretón.

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