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.
References
↑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) |
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