Salvador Dalí’s Christ of St John of The Cross – valued at £60m – has gone on display at The Dalí Theatre and Museum in Catalonia, Spain.
The painting was purchased for £8,200 over 70 years ago by Director of Glasgow Art Galleries and Museums Dr Tom Honeyman. It was deemed to be one of Scotland’s most revered and the greatest work of art in Glasgow’s civic collection at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.
Dalí’s painting is now the iconic feature at a new temporary exhibition in Spain until April 2024.
The exhibition will also feature work by the Centre for Dalinian Studies researching diverse aspects of the life of Salvador Dalí.
The painting was originally scheduled to arrive at the museum in Figueres, where Dalí is buried in an unmarked crypt, in November 2020, but rescheduled due to Covid.
The painting depicts the crucified Christ that features no thorns, nails or wounds, inspired by a drawing Dalí was shown by 16th-century Carmelite priest John of the Cross, which is preserved in the Convent of the Incarnation in Avila in central Spain.
The seascape in the painting is the bay of Portlligat, a small village on the Costa Brava where Dalí lived and worked during 1930-82.
The return of ‘El Cristo de Portlligat’ to Spain has been greeted with much fanfare, with one local media site saying that the painting will undoubtedly be the highlight of the Catalan and Spanish cultural season.
Director of the Dalí Museums and curator of the exhibition, Montse Aguer, said it was an emotional day for the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation.
Jordi Mercader, president of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, said: “We hope that it will indeed attract a lot of people without being able to anticipate the attendance.
“But it is a unique exhibition, the painting has never left the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.”
The Dalí Theatre and Museum confirmed that, given the importance of the temporary exhibition, the entire area of the museum’s Loggias Room in Torre Galatea, Dalí’s last residence, has been adapted to host the exhibition.
A museum spokesperson said: “The exhibition will allow us to revisit a work that had not been seen in Spain since 1952, when it was exhibited in Madrid and Barcelona. And even more importantly, it will allow us to enter the artist’s universe and explore the relevance of Dalí’s workshop in the bay of Portlligat, located in a landscape without which the painting would not acquire its full meaning.
“The exhibition project will provide art lovers with new contributions based on recent research, preparatory drawings and archival material, some of which is previously unpublished.”
The museum also thanked Glasgow Museums for the invaluable collaboration and for loaning one of its most precious pieces for the temporary exhibition.
Dalí’s Christ of St John of The Cross was last loaned out by Glasgow Life Museums to The Auckland Project in County Durham during July-December 2022, along with another Spanish masterpiece in El Greco’s Christ on the Cross.
