Rare Salvador Dalí art travels to India

A comprehensive showcase of the artist's rare etchings, prints, watercolours, tapestries comes to India for the first time

- Abhilasha Ojha

For much of her childhood, Christine Argillet's family spent summers in Spain with the artist Salvador Dalí. He used to affectionately call her "the little infante". Her father, Pierre, a freelance journalist, photographer and publisher, became one of the most important collectors of works by Futurists, Dadaists and Surrealists. Through his publishing company, Editions Pierre Argillet (later renamed Graphik Europa until it wound up in 2001), he encouraged European avant-garde artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Arp and Dalí to create original prints. Later, he founded the Museum of Surrealism at the Chateau de Vaux-le-Penil in Melun, France.

Of all of these artists, Pierre's association with Dalí was deepest. They met in France when, in the late 1950s, he commissioned the artist to work on a copper engraving for their first illustrated art book, titled Rois Mages or