Salvador
Dali

Sold for nearly £13.5 million at Sotheby’s London on 10th February 2011, Portrait De Paul Eluard is the most expensive Dali painting ever sold.

Dali met Surrealist poet Eluard in 1929 while staying in Paris. It was the year in which Dali truly immersed himself with French Surrealism and the movement itself - this same year he worked on the now iconic film Un Chien Andalou. His relationship with Eluard was hugely influential, not least because Dali ended up marrying Eluard’s then-wife Gala. Indeed, this portrait visually unites Dali’s real life experience with the subconscious, psychological and imaginative. It is the pinnacle of surrealist portraiture.

Inspired by the compositions of painter Jean Francoise Millet, there is a real sense of intimacy to Couple With Their Heads Full Of Clouds, achieved through the contours of the frames themselves depicting Dali and his wife Gala.The paintings themselves then lean in towards each other, completing a desert scene occupied by two white-clothed tables. Of course, the ‘heads’ of the image are filled with clouds and an expanse of blue sky.

This diptych sold for nearly £8.2 million at Bonhams London on October 15th 2020, and originally was given by the artist to Paul Eluard as a wedding present. An interesting exchange when one considers Gala was originally wed to Eluard, but then again, the surrealist’s never did concern themselves with conventional interactions did they?