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The Letters Between Lorca and Dalí, Part 2

Written by Patti Heiser

Thursday, 04 December 2008

Last week we introduced the first batch of intriguing letters that were exchanged between Lorca and Dalí. As promised, we now confer the second and final collection of letters, which no doubt serves as evidentiary value regarding the relationship between the two artists. However, if these letters have triggered additional inquisition, you can buy Sebastian’s Arrows [ Pictured to the right ], a book containing a compilation of letters, lectures and mementos of Lorca and Dalí’s relationship.

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In late 1927, Dalí continues his correspondence with Lorca talking about his current projects. It is possible that the pictures that Dalí mentions are “Little Ashes” and “Honey is Sweeter than Blood,” two paintings that he was working on during the last summer.

My dear,

Write me, I have no idea what you are up to. …My dear little pictures, pure, newly born, are to be exhibited for the PUTREFIED of Barcelona.

Goodbye, write me if you can ever remember. You know I’m at your service.
DALI

(Dali to Lorca, October 1927)

Dalí continues to write to Lorca about where his artistic point of view is moving. It seems that Dalí may be pulling back on the closeness of their friendship, but he is still concerned about what is his friend’s opinion of his work.

Dear Child,

Don’t tell anyone, but I think I’m doing really great things. I paint with true fury. I work hard at a line or a dot, erase it, and remake it a thousand times. … I feel hatred for almost everything in the museums, and rage about all that I’ve painted before yesterday. OK, I love you, and I’m good-looking as hell.

(Dalí to Lorca, fall 1927)

In 1928, Lorca published Gypsy Ballads, a collection of poems. Dalí writes to him, negatively critiquing the book and its poems. But towards the end of the letter, Dalí writes to Lorca on a more personal level. To the thinking differently from last summer, was it just about his art? All we have for sure is that this is the last known letter between the two for almost two years.

Federico,

I have read your book [The Gypsy Ballads] calmly …

Your present poetry belongs completely to the traditional. In it, I see the hugest poetic substance that ever was, but completely bound to the norms of the old poetry …

I love and admire you …who will do things that are more fun and revolting and curly and poetic than any poet has ever done.

Goodbye, I believe in your inspiration, in your sweat, in your astronomical fatality. …

A big hug,

DALI

(Dalí to Lorca, September 1928)

In the summer of 1930, Lorca apparently tried to reach out to Dalí to re-establish their friendship.

Salvador, dear friend:

We haven’t seen each other in ages and I would love to speak with you, in fact, I need to speak to you. …
I want to speak to you, I’ve been cut off for too long from your friendship. …

(Lorca to Dali, summer 1930)

Even though Dalí writes back that he too would like to see Lorca, they don’t see each other until almost five years after Lorca’s letter.

Their letters give us clues about a lot of aspects of their relationship. They were both influenced by each other’s artistic view, but exactly how close were they? Was a difference between their feelings towards each other the cause of the “cooling off” of their once very intense friendship or was the cause a divergence of ideas and goals?

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