Encouraged by Salvador Dalí, Lorca exhibited a number of his drawings at the Dalmau Gallery, Barcelona, between 25 June and 2 July 1927. By exhibiting at the Dalmau he was following in the steps of artists such as Gleizes, Gris, Laurencin, Metzinger, Duchamp, Picasso, Miró, Barradas, Picabia and Dalí himself. Twenty-four drawings were shown. Seven of them were clearly attempts to take advantage of the technical conquests of Cubism and form an interesting collection since they are the only Cubist still-lives that Lorca ever produced (see, for example, Figure 1: Teorema de la Copa y la Mandolina [Theorem of the Cup and the Mandolin]). These works contain echoes of Picasso's work, and like Picasso, they look back to the conventions of earlier still-lives. The exhibition stimulated some response from both the press and Lorca's own circle. The Revista de Catalunya referred to the drawings as ‘surrealist art’ and the Ciutat called them a product of ‘post-cubism’ (Rodrigo, p. 142). Sebastià Gasch, art critic and friend of Lorca, challenged people to come and see them: ‘Que los burócratas del arte, que los miedosos, que los sedentarios pasen de lo largo! Que los trascendentes, que los engreneídos, que los responsables pasen de lo largo! Que los temerosos del ridículo, y de las aventuras inéditas, y los grávidos de preocupación pasen de lo largo!’ [Let the bureaucrats of art, the fearful and the sedentary stay away. Let transcendentalists, the pretentious and the responsible stay away! Let those who fear ridicule and hitherto unheard-of adventures, and those who are weighed down with worry stay away!] (Rodrigo, p. 142).

In the September issue of La Nova Revista of 1927, Dalí produced his own review of the exhibition under the title ‘Federico García Lorca. Exposició de dibuixos acolorits’ [Exhibition of colour drawings]. The review begins with a discussion of De Chirico and his impact on young artists living in Paris engaged in surrealist activity. Dalí compares these artists with the Cubists whose work he eulogizes. Writing that they are the masters of pure and uncontaminated poetry, he concludes that the Cubists attained a new form of spirituality.