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[Two words to apologise...]

Undated letter [end of January 1934]

Correspondence

Author

Author Salvador Dalí
Letter to André Breton
Person cited Benjamin Péret

Description

Handwritten letter from Salvador Dalí to André Breton, undated. 
The Dalí affair, between the end of January and the beginning of March 1934, involved the painter accused of having made fascist remarks. As he defended himself, as several letters sent to Breton in this file attest, it quickly became apparent that the question went far beyond his individual case. In fact, against a backdrop of social unrest (see the Nice letters from Tzara and Éluard on this point), the surrealists were brought to clarify their position vis-à-vis the Third International. A difficult thing, because the AEAR affair, the previous year, had left some traces, with the Stalinist infiltration of this association’s institutions having resulted in the departure of Breton and his friends. Thus, a subtle distinction emerged between the cultural policy of the Third International, which almost everyone rejected, and its political options, which were better accepted by the members of the group. The Dalí question was thus taken in a context of a more general crisis, inside and outside a movement finding some difficulty, as Crevel wrote, in making ‘the synthesis of the poetic and the political’. Letters, telegrams, meeting reports, official declarations comprise a fascinating file. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Signed letter, undated [January 1934].
- Signed letter from Dalí to Breton, 1/2 page in-4° on yellow paper jaune in which Dalí apologises for not having come to the meeting. [auction catalogue, translation by Christina Heflin, 2023]