Despite the 1933 dedication, this is an academic study Dalí made a decade earlier in Madrid while at the Escuela Especial de Escultura, Pintura y Grabado [Special School for Sculpture, Painting and Etching], better known as the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando [Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando].

In his book La vida secreta de Salvador Dalí [first published in English in 1942 as “The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí”], Dalí spared no criticism when lamenting the academy’s deficiencies, with one single exception: he praised his former professor Daniel Vázquez Díaz. Díaz had assimilated Postimpressionist tendencies and, without being overtly Cubist, he was influenced by the movement. Vázquez Díaz was a candidate for the Open Air Painting professorship, which was ultimately awarded to another artist much to the dismay of his students. Dalí led the protests in his support and was consequently expelled from the academy in the fall of 1923.

This drawing is dedicated to Catalan painter Rafael Durán Camps, who informally trained with Joaquim Mir and was linked to Eugenio d’Ors. Like Dalí, he painted the landscapes of Cadaqués. In 1935 he opened a gallery in Paris that was frequented by Picasso and Miró. He would sign his works as Durancamps.

This drawing shows Dalí’s assimilation of the classical tendencies of d’OrsianNoucentisme, influenced by Cézanne and Joaquim Sunyer.