Dalí Foundation acquires oil painting from artist's surrealist phase

The Dalí Foundation has bought a new painting by the artist painted in 1932 and which is part of the artist's surrealist era.

In 'The Birth of Liquid Anguish', one can see a cypress tree in the foreground, one of the painter's iconic elements that is repeated in several works, while a landscape of Dalí's native land is seen in the background.

The foundation has been looked to acquire a new work by Salvador Dalí for some time but there were none available that would fit what they were looking for. 

The work is already hanging in the Figueres Museum in one of the three new exhibitions opened on Monday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the arts center.

Director of the Dalí Museum, Montse Aguer, explained to the Catalan News Agency that for a long time they had been "behind" buying works by Dalí, especially from the surrealist period. Despite everything, Aguer explains that "it is increasingly difficult" to buy Dalí's works because "there are fewer and fewer of them for sale."

The painting is part of a series of works that Dalí made in the 1930s on dreamscapes and with the artist's native landscapes as the main element. The work's verisimilitude is achieved from Dalí's treatment of light in this set of paintings.

Three new exhibitions

Montse Aguer says the oil painting represents a "link of union" between the museum and the exhibitions that premiered on Monday.

In the exhibition 'The Dalí Theatre-Museum: a living organism', visitors will find photographs detailing the evolution of the museum through time.

There are also seven drawings by the artist about ideas and projections he had for the museum.

The exhibition 'The soft photographic apparatus: a Dalinian vision' shows 27 photographs of the visits of Salvador and Gala Dalí to various museums. The artist was fond of visiting art exhibitions and here one can find images of the Catalan artist walking through the Louvre in Paris or the Metropolitan in New York.

Finally, the third new exhibition focuses on three artists who have influenced Dalí's work. 'My favorite painters: Velázquez, Vermeer and Raphael' serves to compare some of the most iconic works of these painters and how Dalí used them to create his own pieces.