Beschreibung:

DALI, SALVADOR. Autograph manuscript signed of an essay entitled "Les Pantoufles de Picasso" ("Picasso's Slippers"), with numerous deletions, emendations and revisions, n.d. 10 pages, folio, written on rectos and versos of 5 large sheets of good quality art stock, boldly titled at the head, extreme edges of a few leaves with minor tears or fraying , in French. A deleted alternate title on the last page reads; "Les Pantoufles de Picasso: Exercice Paranoyique-critique." A highly personal essay on Picasso and the Parisian public, written in the late 1930's, celebrating Picasso as a giant among men ("Picasso, a kind of geographical and monarchic institution"), and predicting a coming "democratic apotheosis" in which artists will finally be understood by the public ("Dans ce prochain apoteose democratique regnera une veritable intimité, promiscuité même..." [ sic ]). Dali's convoluted and wordy prose, which abounds in misspellings, is laced with fantastical and often surrealist imagery, in which it is difficult to distinguish the factual from the imaginary, and in which the few anecdotes concerning Picasso serve as much to glorify the writer as to portray the greater artist's genius. The meaning of the sub-title is explained on p. 7: during a visit to Picasso's studio, an unfinished painting reminded Dali of the Las Meniñas of Velazquez and provoked in him a semi-automatic vision or series of associations, an experience which he dubbed "activité paranoyaque critique". The sub-title thus confirms the reader's impression that the present essay may have been an exercise in semi-automatic writing.