Girl with Curls (1926)
Muchacha con rizos (1926)
Oil on panel
Óleo sobre tabla

Several ambiguous elements in this painting make it feel more like a dream then reality. First, judging by the scale of the building next to the girl, she appears to be far too large for the landscape. She is posed with her windswept, diaphanous dress clinging to her figure provocatively. In addition while the landscape is painted in a fairly realistic manner, the curves of the girl’s body are highly exaggerated and accentuated. Finally, the girl is viewed from behind, creating a sense of mystery. By hiding the face, Dalí denies the viewer any psychological details that the girl’s face would provide.

This girl originated in childhood fantasies about a fictional Russian girl whom he nicknamed “Galuchka.” He saw this girl in one of the images in an optical theater/stereoscopic box in the house of his childhood teacher, Señor Trayter. The artist wrote in his autobiography The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí that these images “were to stir me most deeply, for the rest of his life”. She became his dream girl onto whom he could project all of his desires.