Salvador Dalí, Christ of Saint John of the Cross

Talk

Work in focus: 'Christ of Saint John of the Cross' by Salvador Dalí

Monday 4 December 2017 11am - 12pm

The Reynolds Room, Burlington House, Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly. Entrance via the Keeper's House.

£8, £5 concessions.

Sold out

Dalí / Duchamp

Dr Fiona Bradley, Director of The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, explores one of Dalí’s most famous and best loved paintings.

In 1952, the city of Glasgow announced plans to purchase Salvador Dalí’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross for £8,200, after Dr Tom Honeyman, then Director of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, negotiated directly with Dalí and his agent. Since then, the painting has been subject to two bouts of iconoclasm after being the centre of huge public outcry for the amount the gallery spent to acquire it. In recent years the painting has nonetheless become one of the best-loved works in Kelvingrove’s collection, with the Scottish public voting it their favourite painting in 2005.

But what do we know about this work? In this talk, Fiona Bradley bring us closer to the work, looking at it in the context of Dalí’s iconography of Port Lligat, the landscape of his home; Gala, his wife; and, above all, himself.

Fiona Bradley’s doctoral research centred on Salvador Dalí, and in 1999 she co-curated Salvador Dalí: A Mythology with Dawn Ades for Tate Liverpool. Her programme at The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh has included several exhibitions looking at Surrealism from different angles, with Dalí’s Narcissus at the centre of David Lomas’s Narcissus Reflected of 2011.

As this event has sold out, a returns queue will be held from 10.30am on the day. The returns queue list will be held at box office.

£8, £5 concessions.

Sold out