Author Archives: Paul Chimera

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There’s Room for Both Gala and ‘Marie’ at the Top of Dali’s ‘Battle of Tetuan’!

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian-Writer

 

It turns out there’s room for both at the top of Salvador Dali’s large Battle of Tetuan painting: Gala standing above the battle scene, and – in a background detail – the coronation of the Virgin, for whom a young United Nations guide appears to have been the inspiration.

 

Readers of this blog (www.dali.com/news) are asked to refer to the post of Wednesday, Jan. 23 (the 30th anniversary of Dali’s death) to learn about Marie (nee Weizmann) Briefel. She was “discovered” by Dali in 1961 in New York to be the ideal look he was after for the Virgin at the top of the Battle of Tetuan picture.

 

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However, it now appears – thanks to the sharp eye of Dali scholar Elliott King, Ph.D. – that Marie’s face is that of a smaller background image of the Virgin, and not what we first reported in the Jan. 23 post. (See circled image, provided by Dr. King).

 

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King, who some months ago finally saw the masterwork in the flesh at the Morohashi Museum of Modern Art in Fukushima, Japan, was motivated after reading my blog (written exclusively for The Salvador Dali Society, Inc.©), to carefully scrutinize the upper details in this complex work. He detected that a comparatively small portrait of the Virgin, apparently done in black and white paint, is undoubtedly the face of Marie.

 

King reasons that it would be unlikely anyone during the period in Dali’s career when Battle of Tetuan was painted (1962) would command such a leading female role in a painting of his, other than Gala. I agree.

 

Said King: “I’ve heard personal stories of Gala insisting that Dali paint out other women from his paintings because ‘Dali only paints Gala.’ I really think she might have complained to have another woman as such a large central figure. But that’s just a hunch.”

 

It is now a virtual certainty that Marie Weizmann served as the inspiration for the figure of the Virgin.

 

The matter, for me, points up the impressive lengths to which Dali would go to achieve his artistic intentions. Even such a relatively small detail (small in size, not in significance) warranted his insistence on visiting New York City universities to scope out foreign students or staff who might yield the Moroccan features he was looking for.

 

“Truly I can’t say I was necessarily surprised by The Battle of Tetuan, but it was just as impressive as I expected – which is saying something, since I had travelled 6,645 miles one-way almost entirely for the sole reason of seeing it in person!,” King says.

“It took me a full 36 hours to get home, but it was absolutely worth the trip. The painting is very big, of course, so the main thing about viewing it first-hand is that you can see all the small figures and details that are far too tiny in a reproduction. It’s really spectacularly detailed, though because it’s wider than it is high, it’s not as difficult to see those details as it is in, say, Santiago El Grande or The Ecumenical Council. I certainly appreciate why Reynolds Morse included it as one the artist’s ‘masterworks.’”

 

Someday someone needs to do a book devoted expressly to nothing but the huge masterworks, of which there are some 20. Reynolds Morse did a small paperback in black and white in 1971 (Dali: The Masterworks), but I’m envisioning a colorful, elaborate coffee table tome – perhaps with my name as co-author, with Elliott King!

French woman believes she was inspiration for Dali's Virgin in Battle of Tetuan.

Was a French Woman, not Gala, the Model in this Dali Masterpiece?

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian-Writer

Copyright 2019

 

The face of the woman standing in the upper portion of Salvador Dali’s huge 1962 painting, Battle of Tetuan – presumed to be Dali’s wife Gala ever since it was painted 57 years ago – now appears to actually be that of a young former United Nations guide, whose look was the precise “type” for which Dali was searching.

 

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At least that’s the view of Marie (nee Weizmann) Briefel, who says she thinks she was the inspiration behind the Virgin who appears ethereally above the battle between Spain and Morocco, surrealistically captured in Dali’s 10-ft. x 13-ft. canvas, which is owned by the Morohashi Museum of Modern Art in Fukushima, Japan.

 

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If this is true, Dali scholars and aficionados aren’t the only ones who were in the dark about this all these years. Mrs. Briefel herself wasn’t aware of it until only a few months ago!

 

The surreal twist in this esoteric yet fascinating tale began in 1961, when Marie Weizmann – a French young lady whose family originated from Morocco – found herself working at the United Nations in New York City at age 19.

 

She was a young tour guide there, and was asked to be in charge of visitors such as Yul Brynner and Frank Sinatra, the latter with whom she co-hosted a U.N. Day.

 

One evening, while she happened to be at the St. Regis Hotel – Dali and Gala’s winter home for many years – the artist approached her, coming toward her “like a bull! I told him, ‘I know you, but you don’t know me,’” Marie recalls. “It was like he was looking for something and had finally found it!” she says in describing the intensity with which Dali greeted her.

 

Marie later learned Dali went to various New York universities for inspiration, since foreigners would likely be found there and he was looking for distinct facial features.

 

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He asked me, ‘Where can I reach you?’ I told him I worked at the United Nations,” Marie said.

 

She was understandably cautious, being a young woman alone in the big city. “I was safe at the U.N.,” she said. “Two days later Dali called me and said, ‘Please come, I need to talk to you.’ He was very firm and made arrangements to meet at the St. Regis.

 

“We sat at a table and I was wearing my uniform. It had my name on it.

 

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I was the type he was looking for. He wanted to be authentic. He explained he needed the virgin’s face at the top of Battle of Tetuan. ‘I want you to be the face,’ Dali told me.”

 

Dali was with a female companion whose identity Marie doesn’t know, but he turned to the woman and said, “You see what I told you!” He was confident that what he was looking for was precisely what Marie represented – and was now seated across the table from him.

 

‘We’re going to Tetuan,” Dali told Marie, “and I would like you to come with us. I don’t want you to believe I bring bad luck to whomever I paint.”

 

Marie met with Dali several times, and each time “he kept on asking me why I do not want to be painted. I was alone in New York and did not want to be fooled. But I must say, the fact that he even asked my supervisor at the U.N. why I did not want to be painted says a lot.”

 

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Marie, left, and Gala

 

Dali and his entourage eventually returned to Europe after wintering in New York. Three years later, Marie moved to Paris, France. The issue was essentially dropped and, over the decades, forgotten.

 

That is, until Marie’s daughter, a professor at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, gave a lecture last November at a conference in Florida. While there, she visited the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. She had remembered her mother telling her the Battle of Tetuan story and decided to google the work.

 

“My daughter immediately called me and exclaimed, ‘Maman, it is you!’”, Marie recalls (Maman is the French for Mom). Of course, she was referring to the woman at the top of the painting. “My friends at the U.N., who remember me, say it is me. Even my young grandchildren, when they saw the picture, shouted, ‘It’s Mamie (French for grandma)!”

 

But the connection between Marie Weizmann and Salvador Dali didn’t end when he left for Tetuan that day in 1961. There was another brief encounter four years later in Paris. As coincidence would have it, she was dining one evening at the oldest restaurant in the city – L’Escargot Montorgueil – and Salvador Dali was there.

 

“He stood up and exclaimed, ‘You are here?!’” Marie recounts.

 

Nothing was mentioned of the finished Battle of Tetuan, but Marie reasons that Dali had her face fixed in his mind. “That figure of the woman is one-hundred percent me. My husband says it is me. I know my face. Dali went from memory,” Marie said. “We spent two hours together at the St. Regis. I was very natural, my eyes were dark, my hair fluffy.”

 

Marie, who currently works as a legal recruiter for law firms in New York, points out another interesting “wrinkle,” of sorts, in this unusual turn of events. If you look carefully at the blouse of the female figure in question, Marie believes you’ll discern the letter “W,” which she figures stands for Weizmann. Says Marie: “The painting is like a puzzle, where you put the pieces in place…The painting that I discovered very recently is very interesting and complicated, as must have been the thoughts of Dali.

 

“Before meeting him,” she continued, “what I saw of him was very original and odd. I always thought that his paintings did not show the real person, man or woman. I thought he was going to paint me as a clock or any other kind of animal. The painting is grandiose and I am glad I saw it finished and real.”

 

epa05537439 Visitors look at artwork by Spanish artist Salvador Dali during a press preview of the 'Salvador Dali' exhibition at the National Art Center in Tokyo, Japan, 13 September 2016. The exhibition presents more than 200 works from the famous Spanish artist and will be open to the public from 14 September to 12 December 2016. EPA/FRANCK ROBICHON

Told that most people have undoubtedly thought of the standing woman in the painting as Gala Dali (Gala does, in fact, appear in the painting, astride a horse next to a self-portrait of Dali), Marie replied, “If it is really Gala, may she rest in peace.”

And may Salvador Dali rest in peace, as today marks the 30th anniversary of his passing.

 

(NOTE: SINCE THIS POST WENT LIVE, NEW DEVELOPMENTS HAVE OCCURRED THAT “SHIFT” THINGS SOMEWHAT! THIS WILL BE REVEALED, AND WILL MAKE GOOD SENSE, IN MY POST THIS COMING MONDAY, AT WWW.DALI.COM/NEWS.)

 

[Images used under Fair Use Doctrine for journalistic purposes only. Special permission granted by Marie Briefel for use of her photos]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Salvador Dali: Chairs in the Sky; Framing a Modern Classic

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian-Writer

 

Today’s post is going to be a kind of grab-bag of things, consistent with the intrinsic diversity of Salvador Dali’s art itself. The fact is that the man was so prolific and exhibited such a rich mixture of styles and subjects, it’s really rather difficult to label him as a surrealism master alone.

 

Dali did everything! He was a surrealist painter, of course. But his career spanned Cubism, Impressionism, Pointillism, Abstraction, Expressionism, Realism – and even areas beyond realism and beyond the surface of a canvas or print-making matrix, including holography and stereoscopy.

 

Anyway, as noted, today I want to just briefly touch on a few snippets of the ongoing, always exciting Dali mystique…

 

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SUSPENDED SEATING… The word “strange” is often attached to most anything created by Salvador Dali.  And strange can surely characterize works like this one – Four Armchairs in the Sky. What the heck is this all about?  Painted in 1949 while Dali was in his classic-atomic period, we find four mundane, bourgeois arm chairs hanging above a road, with tree-dotted mountains in the background, and what appears to be a white button hovering just above the ground. Branches – some barren, some fecund with vegetation — sprout from the chairs, lending a living essence to the otherwise unremarkably banal furniture. Strange.

 

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HOLEY GOD … That’s “holey,” not “holy,” for a reason: there’s a hole right through the torso of the androgynous (hermaphroditic?) figure who hovers slightly above the pedestal in this 1944 painting, The God of the Bay of Roses (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, USA). Some internet-based information about Roses itself – a municipality on Spain’s Costa Brava – perhaps give us at least a little insight into how the past may have informed Dali’s more modern work of art:

 

“This part of the Costa Brava (Bay of Roses) contains other natural spaces, such as Aiguamolls de l’Emporda, with a large number of native species of flora and fauna; the Cap de Creus, in the northern part of the Costa Brava; and the La Albera Mountains, with an interesting collection of megalithic monuments.

 

“The monuments serve as a starting point for a historic journey along the bay. In the town of L’Escala we find other nearby ruins, those of the ancient Greek and Roman city of Ampurias, one of the most important archaeological sites on the peninsula. Equally outstanding is the Ciutadella de Roses, where you will find the ruins of the city of Rodhes (776 B.C.); the 11th-century monastery of Santa Maria, and Renaissance fortifications; the 7th-century Visigothic Castrum and Trinidad Castle, dating from the 16th century.”

 

It’s also interesting to note the remarkable similarity between The God of the Bay of Roses and a work Dali painted three years later: Untitled (Landscape), whose rock formation and its shadow, sky, and ground details are just marginally short of identical to the earlier work. It’s yet another example of “Dalinian continuity,” where Dali intentionally linked many of his paintings in a kind of cohesive thread.

 

THE PERSPECTIVE OF FRAMING…I really love to see Dali paintings not merely reproduced as a four-corner canvas, but shown in context with the frame that holds it. Framing completes a painting. And seeing the work hanging on a wall gives us a sense of scale and, well, a greater sense of realism, if you will. Here’s a nice example of it, courtesy of Getty Images: Dali’s fabulous 1945 painting, My Wife Nude Contemplating Her Own Flesh becoming Stairs, Three Vertebrae of a Column, Sky and Architecture, being admired by an onlooker.

 

 

FRANCE - DECEMBER 17: Salvador Dali at a press conference about the Salvador Dali exhibition at the Centre George Pompidou In Paris, France On December 17, 1979 - A visitor looking at "My Wife, Naked, Looking at her own Body". (Photo by Daniel SIMON/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

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Oh, and I’d say the classic, ornate frame accords beautifully with this stunning work. The black & white image is nicely contrasted here with the color of this exceptionally cool work – one of my all-time favorite Salvador Dali paintings that brought multiple millions at auction some years back.

 

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Kooky Dali-Designed ‘Locomotive’ Led NYC Parade in ’59

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian/Writer

 

I love coming across things about Salvador Dali that (a) I know I’ve never been aware of before, and (b) I’m pretty sure most others haven’t either. Today’s post is a double-whammy – the good kind – because I’m looking at two Dali creations that have escaped my radar for more years than I care to count.

 

The first involves the strangest “locomotive” Dali was asked to design to lead the Greenwich Village Spring Day Parade in New York in 1959.

 

It is the most preposterous contraption – known as a Loconik – as seen in Dali’s sketch of it, which appeared on the cover of the Greenwich Village publication, The Villager.

 

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I’m not entirely sure I have this right, but I believe the owner of the Albert Hotel, or perhaps just the Albert French Restaurant in New York, was the financial engine behind this strangely conceived conveyance. His name was Joseph Brody. And I’m going to excerpt some relevant parts of a piece that ran in The Villager:

 

The hotel owner visited Dali at his St. Regis Hotel suite. “We’re delighted with your contribution to the parade,” the hotelier started, “but we’re not quite clear about its exact meaning or purpose.

 

“Dali’s face lit up,” wrote William H. Honan of The Villager. “I couldn’t have said anything more flattering. ‘Confusion! Dali creates confusion!’ he exclaimed. ‘And if you’re not any clearer after we talk, call me tomorrow and I’ll offer you more obscurity.’”

 

Acquiescent, the hotel owner inquired about the umbrellas on Dali’s locomotive. Said the Maestro: “Dali all the time creates the contrary of everything. The umbrellas mean pleasure…The umbrella is the skeleton on the outside, like a lobster…and the umbrellas should have water coming out of them, instead of falling on them.”

 

The parade’s coordinator, one Mr. Mardus, interjected that creating umbrellas that would rain themselves would be prohibitively expensive. Could Dali use soap bubbles? he asked.

 

“Soap boobles?” Dali repeated. “Yes, Dali is also a diplomat. We shall have soap boobles. Inside Dali’s locomotive, it is snowing!” But, according to The Villager, Dali warned that if the locomotive were not built in all other respects to Dali’s specifications, he would not ride on it during the parade.

 

Another sketch (not by Dali) of the so-called Loconik.

Another sketch (not by Dali) of the so-called Loconik.

 

The Villager added: “Mr. Mardus explained that a crew of men were working night and day to build the locomotive on schedule for the parade this Saturday. ‘The more the builders suffer,’ Dali replied, ‘the better Dali’s locomotive will be. It is not easy to build this rhythm of confusion which is poetry….’

 

“The more we scratched our heads, the more enthusiastic Dali became,” the article reported. “He told us that the chassis of the locomotive was to be made of real coal because coal is ‘man’s subconscious’ and also the ‘source of all energy.’ He had wanted to build the locomotive ten stories high. He had wanted it to ‘breathe’ like an animal. Any nation that can send a rocket into space, he said, can certainly build his locomotive….”

 

When questioned about the eye and lips on Dali’s locomotive plan, the unpredictable artist replied, “Dali’s locomotive has sex appeal!”

 

Although the original cost of building the vehicle was put at $4,000, it reportedly ended up costing $16,000. But Dali was not charging the parade people anything. Said one of the coordinators: “He’s doing it for the community. He (Dali) loves The Village. So do I. I’ve made my fortune there. I want to give something back to the people.”

 

One report has it that restauranteur Brody’s free tours of Greenwich Village, aboard the Dali-designed conveyance, was a ploy to bring in customers. Whether it worked or not is a historical footnote I’ll have to explore sometime.

 

 

Now to a much different dance . . .

 

Here’s a lovely, charming, sweet little drawing – called The Dancers, I believe, which came across my radar only a few days ago.

 

Seldom seen, thoroughly delightful Dali drawing.

Seldom seen, thoroughly delightful Dali drawing.

 

I’d never seen it before. I carries some sort of dedication/inscription at the bottom. It ironically happens to have been drawn in the year of my birth. And the female dancer is wearing a crown. It’s also interesting that, while Dali employed that oft-seen “spinning man” technique in drawing the figures, their shadows are cast in very heavy dark ink.

 

It’s always a special kick to come across new things about Salvador Dali. At least new to us, right?

 

[Images gratefully used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only]        

 

 

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Salvador Dali Struck a Chord with some Iconic Rock Legends

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian/Writer

 

Salvador Dali’s popularity – during his long and illustrious career, and still very much today – was not unlike that of a rock star. He was not merely a great artist, but a pop celebrity as well.

 

I remember an anecdote shared years ago by Eleanor Morse, who, along with her husband Reynolds, was benefactor of the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was recounting what Dali himself once told her. Had his compatriot, the Catalan artist Joan Miro, found himself in a taxi cab in New York City, no one would have recognized him, Dali reasoned.

 

“But,” said Dali, “when Dali is in a New York City taxi, people always point and exclaim, ‘Look! Look! It’s Salvador Dali! It’s Salvador Dali!’”

 

As it turns out, Dali’s connection to rock star status went beyond his own reputation as a public figure; he actually had at least four connections of varying importance with rock legends.

 

According to the autobiography, Devils & Blue Dresses by 1960s rock legend Mitch Ryder, the high-energy pop music star – who fronted the band, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels – dined with Dali at the iconic Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. It seems to me – and this is based solely on a memory I have, the accuracy of which I’m uncertain – that Ryder gifted Dali an ornate jacket, knowing how Dali never shied away from flamboyance.

 

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Inarguably, a far bigger rock star – Elvis Presley – also had a connection with Salvador Dali, and it too involved a gift of clothing to the master of surrealism.

 

 

In the 1975 BBC film documentary, Hello, Dali, there’s a scene where Dali drops his walking stick while strolling along the grounds of his villa at Port Lligat, Spain. As the camera zooms in, Dali is seen pulling up his gem-studded socks, pointing out to reporter Russell Harty that they were given to him by Elvis Presley – affecting a kind of vocalist’s tone as he pronounced (sang) “Preeesley!”

 

Elvis gave Dali some special socks.

Elvis gave Dali some special socks.

 

The most involved and significant connection between a rock star and Salvador Dali was Dali’s creation of a cylindrical hologram of glam rocker Alice Cooper – or, more precisely, his brain!

 

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The press conference featuring the two outrageous personalities easily made international headlines. Dali explained that he chose Cooper because he was “the best example of total confusion! The more confusion the better!”

 

Confusion – brilliantly leveraged and backed by formidable musical talent – underpinned the debut years of the career of perhaps the single most popular musical artist today: Golden Globe award-winner Lady Gaga.

 

Gaga for Dali.

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Her meat dress, and piano elevated on stilt-like legs, were unquestionably inspired by Salvador Dali. She has even been seen posing with a Dali-style mustache.

 

 

[All images gratefully used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only]

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‘The Voyeur’ One of the Great Works of a Teenage Dali

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Writer/Historian

 

As a Dali historian, blogger, collector, and die-hard aficionado, I confess I don’t focus nearly enough on Salvador Dali’s early art – the very first works he created as a teenager and even younger.

 

Of course, it’s easy to get distracted from such a focus, given the immensely seductive allure of his 1930s surrealist pictures and the tremendously powerful paintings, prints, drawings and works in other mediums that followed.

 

Yet some of the most interesting, charming, and insightful works by Dali were done when he was barely driving age (Dali never drove a car in his life). His art at that time took us down a special road – one that allowed us a glimpse into what was on the mind of the young artist whose future would be marked by greatness, fortune, and the fame he craved.

 

One truly wonderful work – c.1921 gouache on board, about 12 inches by 20 inches, collection Fundacio Gala-Salvador Dali – is The Voyeur.

 

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From a purely esthetic point of view, Dali, at age 17, did a masterful job of capturing a sense of an evening’s darkness, with the warm, sensual glow of the lighted rooms into which the reclining man can peer with impunity. And, of course, so can we.

 

The blue and black and orange palette lends itself ideally to the theme of this subtly sexy work. We get to secretly watch as a woman puts on, or takes off, her stockings; a couple embracing; a slip-clad girl disrobing. It seems perfectly consistent with the natural and normal preoccupations of a post-pubescent boy.

 

Of course, the voyeur in Dali’s picture is far from young; he’s in fact a bearded old man, slumped in his chair, seemingly – paradoxically – oblivious to the after-dark window display he could be voyeuristically enjoying.

 

On the table next to him is a cup and spoon, suggesting coffee or tea, while the bottle implies a far more potent beverage.

 

Perhaps the idea Salvador was trying to convey is that the voyeur – to be “successful” (i.e., assured of not being unmasked) – must fade into the cover of night. Thus, the man adopts a kind of protective inconspicuousness.

 

Or maybe Dali was suggesting that the man already had his fill of being a peeping tom, and now it’s our turn, as he slinks down to rest after a night of satisfying voyeuristic fantasy.

 

[Image gratefully used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only]

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Fire was a Hot Subject in a host of Dali Paintings, Prints & more

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Writer/Historian

 

It’s “fuego” in Spanish. “Foc” in Catalan. And it occupies a curious place in the life and work of Spain’s hottest artistic product, Salvador Dali. I’m talking, of course, about “fire.”

 

Dali’s most prominent and provocative representation of fire appeared in his outrageous and iconic images of a giraffe on fire, which made its first appearance in The Burning Giraffe of 1936-1937. This paradoxical and dramatic image found itself in a host of subsequent paintings, drawings, prints, and even sculpture by Dali, including Inventions of the Monsters of 1937, The Dream of Venus of 1939, and The Flames, They Call, painted in 1942. In Dali’s world, a burning giraffe was a symbolic harbinger of impending war.

 

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Prints included one he did for Currier & Ives – Fire, Fire, Fire! – and The Flaming Giraffe in the Human Jungle print suite. Woman Aflame is among Dali’s most popular sculptural images.

 

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Dali depicted a tuba on fire – an unabashed nod to fellow denizen of Surrealism, Rene Magritte – in his first version of Dali’s Seven Lively Arts painting, Boogie-Woogie (more about that in a moment). We even find a tiny flame of a lit candle in the bottom center of the great but little-known oil, Juliet’s Tomb, of 1942.

 

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I remember how I thought Dali suddenly shouted an obscenity in the 1975 BBC documentary, Hello, Dali, when he orchestrated a ceremonious scene that involved several people holding burning candles alongside a stuffed giraffe. Dali then blurted, “Foc!”, which sounded like another four-letter word, but was in fact the Catalan word for fire.

 

And then there were the three major incidents in which fuego/foc/fire burned its way into Dalinian history. First, there was the fire at the Mt. Kisco, New York home of Broadway impresario Billy Rose. Rose had commissioned Dali to paint his vision of the Seven Lively Arts, which was a revue Rose was staging at his Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City.

 

For a period of time after the Dali paintings were created in an upstairs studio Dali set up at the Ziegfeld and then displayed in the theatre’s lobby, they were moved to Rose’s residence at Mt. Kisco. Then, in 1956, a fire of unknown original swept through the spacious estate, and the Dali’s – along with other precious fare – were destroyed.

 

Rose's Mt. Kisco estate up in flames -- along with the Dali's.

Rose’s Mt. Kisco estate up in flames — along with the Dali’s.

 

Incredibly, Dali offered to re-paint the seven works, and at the same price he was paid more than a decade earlier. He did so, and there’s long since been some debate as to which ones were better (I favor the first set).

 

Fast forward several more decades, and we find how fire played a disastrous role in Dali’s world in August 1984, when he was ailing in his room at the 12th century castle-residence in Pubol and a short-circuit in his nurse-alert buzzer caused a fire that resulted in first- and second-degree burns to his leg. The poor man was reportedly found by long-time friend and biographer Robert Descharnes, crawling along the bedroom floor toward the doorway.

 

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Most recently, it turns out that Dali’s re-make of Boogie-Woogie from his Seven Lively Arts series (the new work has gone by two titles — The Dance, or Rock ‘n Roll) ended up in the collection of the wife of notorious Columbian cocaine king, Pablo Escobar.

 

This surrealist dance couple survived a car bombing.

This surrealist dance couple survived a car bombing.

 

In 1988, a car bomb targeting Escobar and his family tore through the apartment building where the Dali was hung in the Escobar’s library. No one was hurt – including the Dali. The painting was then moved to the residence of Escobar’s sister-in-law, where, incredibly, it survived unscathed yet another fiery attack.

 

[All images gratefully used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Photo References Reveal how Dali’s Landscapes were Very Real

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

 

The importance of Dali’s homeland in Port Lligat, on Spain’s Costa Brava, can never be underestimated. Dali’s surrealism was influenced enormously by the distinctive, unique shapes, colors, and textures of the rocky terrain that skirted his and Gala’s seaside villa.

 

The terraced cliffs, dramatic skies, and peculiar, naturally occurring rock formations provided a limitless wealth of inspiration for Dali. The result was a body of work – paintings, mainly, but also drawings, prints, and watercolors – in which the only landscape Dali loved appeared time and time again.

 

It seemed this topography, this geological reality was as much a part of Dali as his very flesh and blood! That it was more than merely inspiration; it was an extension of Dali himself. “It is the most beautiful place in the world,” he said definitively of Port Lligat.

 

Today the French photographer Clo’s wonderful photographs of Port Lligat, Cadaques, and Cape de Creus – which she has shared on Facebook and has agreed to let The Salvador Dali Society, Inc. use here – provide a reference for a host of Dali works reproduced below.

 

I think it’s interesting – and hope you’ll agree – to look at various Dali works featuring landscapes and seascapes, and compare them to actual photographs of the place that inspired the artist so deeply, and for so long.

 

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46295692_10217215978450007_524480549826330624_n The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table - Salvador Dali - Great Art - Peter Crawford

 

Countless other examples could fill this space almost without end.

Most every Dali specialist agrees that the number one influence in Dali’s art — OK, maybe tied with the influence of Gala — was the landscape where he grew up and where he lived all his life.

Dali loved his stays at the Meurice Hotel in Paris and the St. Regis in New York. And while he did some work at those locations, there’s no question that his most inspired work was created when he was back at Port Lligat, the tiny hamlet at the extreme northeast corner of Spain.

A remote spot unknown to most of the rest of the world, it was there that the genius of Salvador Dali made itself known to the entire world.

 

[Art images gratefully used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only. Photographs by Clo specially used with her kind permission.]

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Here’s Why Sometimes Dali’s Work Looked Photographic

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

 

Salvador Dali’s work is so much more interesting – at least I think so – when you can get a glimpse into his creative process. Dali was such a perfectionist of a painter (not to mention as a creator of prints, drawings, watercolors, sculpture, even holograms) that it’s fascinating to get a sense of how his works evolved along the way, from concept to completion.

 

Specifically, as part of that methodical process, I’m talking about the references and models he used. Dali was known to work frequently from photographs as well as live studio models.

 

Today I’m looking at just two Dali’s and two photos that were key in their creation. One is among his best-known masterworks – in fact, the canvas considered the very first of Dali’s large masterworks – while the other is a curious and really little-known picture. Both works honor the centrality of Gala in Dali’s life and artistic oeuvre.

 

I find it intriguing to see the translation of a preparatory reference photo to the finished painting. Here we can see how the photo of a praying Gala, swathed in sheets, served as the model for the lovely portrait of her as the Virgin Mary in the 1950 painting, The Madonna of Port Lligat. I’ve included a study Dali did of Gala’s face as well.

 

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Notice how the finished painting is exactly the way Gala was posed in the corresponding photograph of her.

 

Now here’s the other Gala-centered work that is little-known and perhaps a bit silly – even for Dali! Titled Portrait of Gala with a Lobster (Portrait of Gala with Aeroplane Nose, c. 1934), it’s interesting to see how, again, Dali worked

directly from a photo.Salvador Dali Portrait of Gala with a Lobster (Portrait of Gala with Aeroplane Nose), circa 1934

FRANCE - 1925: Elena Diakonova, said Gala, first wife of Paul Eluard whom Salvador Dali then married in 1929. France, by 1930. (Photo by Martinie/Roger Viollet/Getty Images)

 

Several anecdotes have come to my attention over the years about Dali employing photos in the development of his art. One was a remark that the dove in The Ecumenical Council looked more stuffed than real-life. The fact was, as Dali readily explained, he used a stuffed bird as the model for it. He painted it exactly as he saw it!

 

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OK, while that example isn’t exactly one involving photography, this one is. It deals with Salvador Dali’s grand masterpiece, Santiago El Grande, about which someone commented that the horse lacked the look of a “real” horse.

 

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In fact, Dali worked from a photograph of the animal. And, for my money, he ended up painting one of the most majestic and magnificent images of a horse ever produced by any painter. It didn’t matter if Dali worked from a photographic reference, or sat in a stable with the horse panting in front of him.

 

The fact remains: the monumental horse in Santiago El Grande leaves viewers in awe of both the image, and the artist who created it.

 

[Images gratefully used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only]

 

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Dali Christmas Card Design Features 4 Double-Images

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

 

Salvador Dali did a variety of interesting greeting card designs for Hallmark, but for my money none was as lovely and painstakingly executed as the one here, though I don’t know if it has a title. No matter; what we can comfortably call it is quintessentially Dalinian by the Surrealism’s greatest master. And especially unique for its double-imagery.

 

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I find it significant, perhaps ironic, that time and again some of Salvador Dali’s very best work was done on commission. His magnificent series of magazine advertisements for Bryan Hosiery are a great case in point: they were simply some of Dali’s finest mixed-media art pieces.

 

One of a host of Dali's ad designs for Bryan Hosiery

One of a host of Dali’s ad designs for Bryan Hosiery

 

The Christmas card here features at least four double-images – a penchant for which Dali had no equal. He was the 20th century master of the double-image and this work proves it once again.

 

This picture, in fact, includes more double-images than any Dali watercolor/gouache I can think of.

 

Let’s start at the top.

 

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The birds in the sky form a human face – or, rather, that of the guitar-playing angel who is slightly elevated off the ground. This motif was used in a number of other Dali works in various mediums, including his design, Dance of the Flower Maidens, for a dinner plate; his design for one side of his Peace Medal; and in one of three wall-sized murals for the Manhattan apartment of cosmetics queen Helena Rubinstein.

 

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Below the angelic face in the featured Christ card are snow-capped mountains – which also cleverly serve as the angel’s magnificently outsized wings.

 

Direct your gaze down and to the left and you’ll discover that the man playing a guitar has a head that doubles as an opening in the cliff behind him. Meanwhile, his musical instrument is at the same time the space under the bridge.

 

Am I missing anything? It’s certainly possible. And therein lies just one of the reasons why the art of Salvador Dali is so engaging, compelling, and often just plain fun! He engages us; he forces us to look, look, look!

 

At the same time the work taken as a whole is really a lovely depiction of the birth of the infant Jesus, who, lying on a bed of hay, is joined here by a prayerful Virgin Mary in gold-trimmed regalia, while the aforementioned figure at left may be that of Joseph.

 

The work appears to be done in gouache or watercolor, though I don’t know for certain. Whatever the medium, it was executed with the absolutely superb draftsmanship that was a hallmark of Dali’s genius and popular appeal.

And speaking of popular appeal, Dali’s Hallmark card design featuring Santa with drawers is a jolly good example of Dali’s irrepressible sense of humor and child-like wonderment!

 

Who needs a big toy bag when you've got built-in drawers!

Who needs a big toy bag when you’ve got built-in drawers!

 

POST-SCRIPT: I’ve since learned the work is titled The Angel, executed in 1947 in ink & watercolor, 12-3/4 inches x 10-1/4 inches.

 

[Images gratefully used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only]