The Reina Sofía lends a work by Dalí to the City Council of Figueres (Girona) that will be exhibited in the artist’s birthplace

The Reina Sofía National Art Center Museum has lent a screen painted by Salvador Dalí at the beginning of the twenties to the City Council of Figueres (Girona) to be exhibited in the artist’s Birthplace starting March 26.

The work was acquired and restored by the Reina Sofía in December 2024 and it is a piece of the artist’s early production that is “exceptional” both for its unusual format and for its oriental-inspired motifs. Made when Dalí I was barely nineteen years oldthe work reflects a moment of “intense experimentation and openness to international influences.”

This collaboration between institutions was presented yesterday at an event held at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, within the framework of the FITUR International Tourism Fair. In addition to this work, the Figueres City Council and the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation have presented the temporary exhibition of ‘The Madonna of Portlligat’which can be seen for the first time at the Dalí Theater-Museum until February 22.

The director of the Dalí Museums, Montse Aguer, explained that the temporary exhibition is dedicated to ‘The Madonna of Portlligat’ because it is one of the “most emblematic and significant” works of Dalí’s career.

The work, made around 1950, is presented for the first time and in an exceptional way in Figueres, which constitutes a unique opportunity for both the general public and the academic community. It belongs to the stage of nuclear mysticismin which Dalí fuses the Christian iconographic tradition with the new scientific theories that emerged after the Second World War, especially those related to the disintegration of matter.

The painting shows the figure of the Virgin and Child, arranged in a fragmented and suspended architectural space, with openings that reveal the landscape of Portlligat.