Almada made this drawing in Madrid, where he lived between March 1927 and April 1932. A dedication on its back, dated of the 30th of December, reads ‘To José Luiz Durán, in memory of the day you introduced me to your mother and sisters in the Royalty Cinema’. The person in question is José Luis Durán de Cottes, a Spanish architect whom Almada had befriended, and to whom he would later dedicate Direcção Única [Sole Direction], an address on individuality and colectivity he delivered in June 1932 in Lisbon, after returning from Spain. The drawing represents Greta Garbo, who was in Madrid in December 1930 to promote The Kiss, a 1929 film directed by Jacques Feyder which starred the famous actress.

SAF

May 2010