Salvador Dalí (Figueres, Girona, 1904 - 1989). Nude study: couple, standing man and reclining woman. Ca. 1966. Graphite and colored airbrush, gold paint on Arches paper. 38 x 56 cm. (67 x 84 cm with frame). PROVENANCE: Private collection, David Colombo, France. DOCUMENTATION: - Nicolas and Olivier Descharnes have confirmed the authenticity of the piece (d6955_c1966). - A certificate of authenticity issued by Mr. Joël Barès, modern art expert, dated Paris, France, September 23, 1982, is included. - Certificate issued by Archives Descharnes, no. d6955. - Export permit issued by the Ministry of culture, Spain. DESCRIPTION: Signed in the lower right corner ‘Dalí’, in blue biros. Manuscript by a third party on the back, upper left, in blue pen: ‘Ricevuto direttamente dell'artista / e maestro Salvador Dali / David Colombo’. This work, executed by Dalí around 1966, combines sketchy, evanescent and delicate drawing with airbrush work that gives the image a celestial atmosphere, amidst soft clouds of blue and twilight violet and intense, opaque golden splashes. The naked figures, evocative of a world of sensuality, share space without relating to each other, linked only through the dreamlike space of the superimposed colour. Salvador Dalí (Figueres, Girona, 1904-1989) moved to Madrid in 1922, where he lived in the famous Residencia de Estudiantes and entered the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts. However, in 1926, before his final exams, he was expelled for claiming that there was no one at the Academy fit to examine him. That same year Dalí settled in Paris, where he began to establish the formal characteristics that would become the hallmark of his work, absorbing disparate influences, from the academic masters to the avant-garde. Linked to the surrealism of Montparnasse, in 1929 he collaborated with Luis Buñuel in the making of Un perro andaluz, the movement's most renowned film. His work greatly influenced the direction of Surrealism for the next two years, and he was hailed as the creator of the paranoiac-critical method, which was said to help access the subconscious by releasing creative artistic energies. In 1931 Dalí painted one of his most famous works, The Persistence of Memory, in which, according to some theories, he illustrated his rejection of time as a rigid or deterministic entity. Dalí landed in America in 1934 under the guidance of the art dealer Julian Levy. As a result of his first solo exhibition in New York, his international reputation was definitively consolidated, and from then on he showed his work and gave lectures all over the world. That same year he was subjected to a ‘Surrealist trial’ which resulted in his expulsion from the movement, as the painter considered that Surrealism could exist in an apolitical context, refusing to commit himself to the ideas of André Breton. Dalí responded to his expulsion with his famous retort: ‘I am Surrealism’. Most of his production is currently housed in the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueras, followed by the collection of the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg (Florida), the MNCARS in Madrid, the Salvador Dalí Gallery in Pacific Palisades (California), the Espace Dalí in Montmartre (Paris) and the Dalí Universe in London.