I Do Not Paint a Portrait To Look Like the Subject. Rather Does the Person Grow To Look Like His Portrait

Salvador Dali? Pablo Picasso? Gertrude Stein? Alice B. Toklas? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: A self-assured painter once suggested that one should never deliberately create a portrait to look precisely like its subject. Instead, the brilliance of the artwork would cause the subject to grow to look like the portrait over time. Would you please help me to determine the identity of this painter and to locate a citation?

Quote Investigator: In 1943 the Knoedler Galleries of New York presented an exhibition of portraits by the prominent Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. While commenting about the event Dalí expressed a viewpoint similar to the one above. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:^[1] 1943 April 26, Newsweek, Volume 21, Issue 17, Section: Art, Article: ‘Rapport of Fatality’, Quote Page 82, Column 1, Newsweek Publishing, New York. (ProQuest)

“My aim,” says Dali of these likenesses of wealthy heiresses and glamor women of the international set, “was to establish a rapport of fatality between each of the different personalities and their backgrounds. I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject. Rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.”

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

The famous Spanish artist Pablo Picasso made a remark implying that he held a comparable stance as recorded in the 1933 book “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas” by Gertrude Stein. Toklas and Picasso exchanged the following words:^[2] 1933, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, Chapter 2: My Arrival in Paris, Quote Page 14, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York. (Verified with scans)

After a little while I murmured to Picasso that I liked his portrait of Gertrude Stein. Yes, he said, everybody says that she does not look like it but that does not make any difference, she will, he said.

A separate Quote Investigator article about the quotation ascribed to Picasso is available here.

The quotation at the beginning of this article from Salvador Dalí appeared in “Newsweek” magazine in 1943. The “Newsweek” journalist commented that the artist’s portraits were accurate:^[3] 1943 April 26, Newsweek, Volume 21, Issue 17, Section: Art, Article: ‘Rapport of Fatality’, Quote Page 82, Column 1, Newsweek Publishing, New York. (ProQuest)

Actually most of them are fair likenesses. The backgrounds, however, are typical fantastic Dali-degenerate classic landscapes filled with mythological figures disporting themselves.

In 1947 the “Harrisburg Telegraph” of Pennsylvania published an article titled “Who Is It?” which presented information about Dalí without naming him. Readers were challenged to identify the artist:^[4] 1947 September 23, Harrisburg Telegraph, Who Is It?, Quote Page 16, Column 4, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. (Newspapers_com)

“I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject,” he once said. “Rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.” He is the painter whose mustache has a droop, who puts eau de cologne on his topcoat.

In 1949 “The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations” compiled by Evan Esar printed the following entry:^[5] 1949 Copyright, The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, Edited by Evan Esar, Section: Salvador Dali, Quote Page 62, Bramhall House, New York. (Verified with scans)

Dali, Salvador, born 1904, Spanish-American painter.
I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.

In 1989 “A Dictionary of Art Quotations” compiled by Ian Crofton included the Dalí quotation while citing the Esar compilation.^[6] 1989, A Dictionary of Art Quotations, Compiled by Ian Crofton, Topic: Portraiture, Quote Page 151, Schirmer Books: A Division of Macmillan, New York. (Verified with scans)

In conclusion, Salvador Dali should receive credit for the remark he made in 1943. Pablo Picasso expressed a similar attitude with respect to one specific painting he completed in 1906: Portrait of Gertrude Stein.

(This Dalí quotation was encountered while QI was exploring the quotation ascribed to Pablo Picasso. That research was initiated after QI read an article in “The New Yorker” magazine by Michael Schulman that referred to Picasso’s remark.)