The kings of Spain ended a brief visit to Austria on Monday, which included a floral offering in Vienna in memory of all the victims of Nazism and, in particular, of the Spanish women – most of them Republican deportees – and the inauguration of a exhibition dedicated to the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. The last stage of the visit was the opening of an exhibition entitled Dalí-Freud: An Obsession at the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna, which shows how the theories of the Viennese Sigmund Freud, “the father of psychoanalysis”, influenced him. to the Figueres painter Salvador Dalí. The exhibition on Dalí – open until May 29 – brings together a hundred objects, including paintings, photographs, writings, sculptures and films.
Jaume Brihuega, curator of the exhibition and professor emeritus of Art History at the Complutense University of Madrid, guided the kings, who were accompanied by the Minister of Culture, Miquel Iceta, through the exhibition.
A total of 36 original pieces by Dalí, films by Luis Buñuel, 15 works by Federico García Lorca, histological drawings by Santiago Ramón y Cajal and sketches by Sigmund Freud himself bring visitors to the life of the Empordà creator.
The exhibition covers the artist’s childhood and his time at the Madrid Student Residence, where his “obsession” with Freud arose after learning about psychoanalysis. “We have considered the exhibition as a journey from Dalí’s childhood, when his problems and frustrations arose, to his meeting with Freud in 1938,” explained Brihuega. Dalí-Freud. An obsession has been a reality with loans from funds such as the Dalí Foundation, the Dalí Museum in Florida, the Freud Museum in London or the Thyssen Museum in Madrid, among other collections. Freud’s influence on Dalí, very important in his surrealist period, continues throughout his career, and is very present in a special section on the first floor of his Theater-Museum in Figueres.