DALÍ COMES TO TENERIFE'S SOUTH BANK

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Tuesday March 9 2010

A PAINTING by Catalan surrealist Salvador Dalí went on display at the Tenerife Arts Space on Tuesday.

by JAMES TWEEDIE

El rec de la Jorneta (The ravine of the Jorneta) is on loan to the TEA from its owners, a Canarian family, for five years.

Javier González de Durana, artistic director of the gallery on the south bank of Santa Cruz' Barranco de Santos, and Tenerife Cabildo government general coordinator of cultural and historic heritage Cristóbal de la Rosa unveiled the painting to the press on Tuesday morning.

Dalí painted El rec de la Jorneta in 1923 at the age of just 19 while living at the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid and studying at the Academia de San Fernando, during a trip to his family home in Figueres, Catalunya, now home to a museum of his work.

It depicts an Arcadian scene very similar to parts of Tenerife, with women bathing naked on the terraced flank of the valley.

The painting formed part of the 1979-1980 Dalí exhibition at the Pompidou centre in Paris. Mr González explained that it was "one of the greatest paintings that Dalí did during that period."

Mr De la Rosa thanked "the unmatched effort and confidence of the Tenerife family that has given this painting."

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