President Tarradellas’s “I am here” is one of the most iconic and emotional moments in the history of Catalonia. The politician was received with enthusiasm by the crowd that had gathered before him. This was preceded by 38 years of exile and extreme economic hardships in an attempt to survive in France.
On the dining-room sideboard, the Tarradellas family had hung an exceptional painting. It was a landscape-oriented canvas, about half a metre long and only 14 centimetres high, depicting the sinuous scenery of Portlligat. The painting was titled Anthropomorphic Echo and its author was Salvador Dalí. The work dated from 1937, and Josep Tarradellas had purchased it at the end of the war. Despite the difficulties and countless moves since going into exile, he had never wanted to part with it, but as the years went by, practical complications grew...
Josep Tarradellas had succeeded Josep Irla as president of the Government of Catalonia in 1954 with a clear goal: to keep the institution alive. But good intentions do not pay the bills, and the Tarradellas family had to scramble to make ends meet. By 1960, the situation was so critical that the president made the painful decision to take down the Dalí and put it up for sale.
1. Visit by Salvador Dalí and his wife to President Tarradellas and his wife Antonia Macià. 8 June 1979. 2. Anthropomorphic Echo (1931) by Salvador Dalí. Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation.
To carry out the sale, Tarradellas enlisted the help of Jaume Miravitlles, who had been the propaganda commissioner for the Republican Catalan Government. Known to everyone as Met, he lived in exile in New York and maintained his friendship with the surrealist painter, with whom he had been schoolmates during childhood in Figueres.
From the moment Dalí became aware of the situation, he collaborated with the president in the sale process. In fact, when Tarradellas sent the painting to the United States so that Dalí’s agent could put it on the market, the painter agreed to claim it as his own temporarily so that the politician would not have to pay import taxes.
Jaume Miravitlles and his daughter Montserrat in New York, 1961.
Tarradellas wanted to sell the painting as quickly as possible because he urgently needed the money, but the transaction dragged on from the very beginning. The first setback occurred when the painting arrived with some damage, which Dalí himself agreed to repair. The price of the painting, set at 8,000 dollars, also caused complications, as Dalí felt it was too little and that such a valuation diminished his status. It should be remembered that at the time, Dalí was consolidating his career in the United States, and he wanted his paintings to be well-priced to be regarded as a highly valued artist. As if that were not enough, Miravitlles was so busy with his affairs in New York that he did not give the sale process the push it needed, which dragged on, while the Tarradellas’ anxiety only continued to grow.
Visit by Salvador Dalí and his wife to President Tarradellas and his wife Antonia Macià. 8 June 1979.
Desperate to resolve the matter, the president decided to contact an old friend and party colleague, Francesc Senyal, from Bages, who was also living in the American city at the time, to find out what was happening with Met and the painting. At the Tarradellas Archive, the letter Senyal sent from New York on 8 May 1961 is preserved, in which he tried to reassure Tarradellas, explaining that Miravitlles was handling all the arrangements he could, even going to the Carstairs gallery to speak with Dalí’s agent in America. The intermediary assured him that the painting would sell without problems, but one of the interested buyers had noticed some minor additional damage to the canvas, which Dalí again promised to repair. According to the American gallery owner’s calculations, this would only take a couple of days, after which the painting would simply need to be photographed for circulation. According to Senyal’s letter to Tarradellas, everything should have been resolved within a couple of weeks. But it was not.
Letter Senyal sent from New York, 8 May 1961.
The sale process continued to drag on, and in the meantime, the president kept asking about the progress. Since he could no longer manage the debts, he asked Miravitlles and Senyal to send even a partial payment from the sale. If no one could pay the full amount at once, he had no objection to the painting being paid in instalments if that would help secure the money once and for all.
Finally, the sale was completed in mid-July. Despite Dalí’s aspirations, the painting sold for 8,000 dollars, but Tarradellas only received 6,000 dollars, as commissions for intermediaries and various administrative fees had to be deducted. With that money, the president managed to buy a little more time to continue resisting from exile in Saint-Martin-Le-Beau.
Visit by Salvador Dalí and his wife to President Tarradellas and his wife Antonia Macià. 8 June 1979.
As for Anthropomorphic Echo, it eventually came into the hands of a collector from Cleveland named Reynolds Morse, who, upon his death, bequeathed his collection to the Dalí Museum in Florida, where it is on display today.
By parting with the painting, Tarradellas lost a portion of his personal wealth, but he never lost his sense of institutional responsibility. He was always mindful of the duty he had assumed in 1954 from Irla and other exiled politicians, and in keeping with this commitment, he always acted as President of the Government of Catalonia, preserving all the documentation from the years of exile, aware that it would allow future generations to understand the trials he and so many other exiles endured from 1939 onwards.
Visit by Salvador Dalí and his wife to President Tarradellas and his wife Antonia Macià. 8 June 1979.
Montserrat Tarradellas i Macià Archive
All this documentation later served as the foundation for the Montserrat Tarradellas i Macià Archive at the Monastery of Poblet. This archive naturally preserves the letter Francesc Senyal wrote in 1961 from New York, giving a clear sense of some of the most critical moments of the exile of the 125th President of the Government of Catalonia. All this documentation later served as the foundation for the Montserrat Tarradellas i Macià Archive at the Monastery of Poblet. This archive naturally preserves the letter Francesc Senyal wrote in 1961 from New York, giving a clear sense of some of the most critical moments of the exile of the 125th President of the Government of Catalonia.
Photos from the Montserrat Tarradellas i Macià Archive (Monastery of Poblet). Author: Lorena Ruiz Pellicero
Do you want to know more details about this story?
Consult the original document on which this story is based at Arxius en Línia (Archives Online).
And if you want to consult it in person at the Montserrat Tarradellas i Macià Archive (Poblet Monastery Archive), ask for the document “SENYAL Ferrer, Francesc/”, with reference code AAP1010-2-T-1832.
The importance of the document
And, if you still want to delve deeper, watch this video in which Núria Gabarró, director of the Montserrat Tarradellas i Macià Archive, explains the significance of the document chosen to tell this story.
