Lot 78 D

The subject was presented in a colour version on the cover of the Sunday magazine "American Weekly" on 16 January 1938. Dalí had worked for the "American Weekly", pubished by W.R. Hearst, since 1934. His artistic contributions enabled him to reach a large readership with his surrealist imagery, but also to propagate his ideas and political ideals at that time: “It is evidently a matter of urgency for Surrealism to adopt an attitude of extreme ideological rigour; in fact, this is not a matter of quality or quantity, but of authenticity. We must be highly rigorous concerning the authenticity of the documents that must serve us to exemplify and illustrate our ideas. On the other hand, I am certain that we must make certain concessions in order to obtain opportunities for dissemination and propaganda, because otherwise our attitude will remain mystical; we need to act at all cost and be materially influential in our time [...].” (Dalí in a letter to Paul Éluard in 1934, quoted from: Salvador Dalí, Rétrospective, exhib. cat. Paris 1979/1980, p. 300).
Dalí's critique of the cynicism that underlies civilisational processes and political developments is obvious in this important drawing of pictorial composition which allows a range of different interpretations, even today. The subtitle is a direct reference to one of the artist's main works, his painting “Construction molle avec haricots bouillis - Prémonition de la guerre civile" of 1936 (Philadelphia Museum of Art). But there are also references to other paintings created in 1937 (“Cannibalisme d'automne”, “Girafe en feu”, “L'Énigme d'Hitler”, and “L'Invention des monstres"). Many formally abstract compositional elements display a kinship with Pablo Picasso's “Anatomies”, surrealist works created in the early 1930s.