Cadavre exquis (Cadavre exquis (Exquisite corpse))

This print, dated 1933-1934, corresponds to a period in which Dalí was working on the 30 prints for Les Chants de Maldoror [OG18-47], commissioned by Albert Skira, whose publishing house was located next to Picasso’s studio on the rue de la Boétie in Paris. It is worth noting that Picasso had illustrated Skira’s first publishing project, Ovid’s Les Métamorphoses, in 1931, with 30 original illustrations. A small drawing from the collection bears a close relationship to this print. It is a sketch on semi-translucent tracing paper that Dalí kept along with proofs of Les Chants de Maldoror in a folder in his Portlligat studio. The artist transferred this sketch to a celluloid plate and then incorporated it onto an existing Picasso print, Trois baigneuses II. It may be supposed that Picasso was not informed beforehand of this intervention, which transformed the original work into a cadavre exquis-type print, the result of a collaborative creation between the two artists.