Salvador Dali, the great 20th century Master of surrealist painting - who worked in an enormously diverse range of mediums and styles - was also a master lithographer, etcher and engraver. In January 1965, Dali appointed the late Sidney Z. Lucas, head of Phyllis Lucas Gallery and of Camilla Lucas, Inc., Art Publishers, to be his exclusive publisher in North America of hand-signed graphics: lithographs, etchings, lithographic prints, etc. The couple was his preeminent publisher between 1965 and 1974.

These beautiful editions were released for distribution by the Old Print Center of Phyllis Lucas Gallery in New York City, and today are considered among Salvador Dali's very best work. They're some of the most sought after Dali prints ever produced. Included among them, in part, are Changes in Great Masterpieces, The Three Graces, Studio of Dali, Drawers of Memory, The Face in the Windmill, Fantastique Voyage, Flower Magician, Triumph of the Sea, and his Bull Fight series.

This superb 1965 original, one-of-a-kind drawing, Magician, executed in the book, The World of Salvador Dali, is dedicated to Sydney and Phyllis Lucas, featuring the artist's affectionate misspelling of their last name and even misspelling the word  magician! One often wondered if Dali was in fact a poor speller (sometimes geniuses are!), or if he was simply playing the bewildering surrealist to the hilt.

But spelling aside, Dali gets high marks for what is surely one of the finest and most delightful of his dedicatory drawings.

His hand-written inscription title of magician is directed expressly at Phyllis Lucas, whose talents Dali considered nothing short of magical. He recognized her uncanny business ability. And he was aware that Mrs. Lucas astutely understood the art market and helped make Dali's inventive works, published by the Phyllis Lucas Gallery Old Print Center, coveted among collectors - then and even more so today, as Dali's reputation continues to shine as one of history's most important artists.

But Dali also accorded Phyllis Lucas the magician moniker because he recognized a kind of control she had over Dali himself - quite a rarity, given Dali's fierce independence and highly excitable artistic temperament. Yet Dali would at times do multiple proofs of a work, until Mrs. Lucas was completely satisfied. There was no compromising. She held his feet to the fire. She convinced him to put forth his very best work for her. He didn't disappoint.

I really loved her stories. I think Dali did, too, remembers Peter Lucas, the couple's son and member of the Appraisers Association of America, speaking of his mother. He had such great respect for my mother as his publisher that he used to call her 'The Grande Dame of Dali.'

Further attesting to the impeccable reputation of Phyllis Lucas was writer Meryle Secrest, who, in her 1986 biography of Dali, wrote: In his preface to the Lucas exhibition Reynolds Morse noted that the Lucas Gallery was one of the few publishers of editions for which the claim 'limited' could fairly be made and that the artist's signature had been personally witnessed by Mrs. Lucas.

The results, then, of the Dali-Lucas relationship were indeed magical!

And that magic continues in this wonderful original drawing, featuring a Merlin-like magician or wizard, formed largely of a continuous, tightly controlled line and sporting magnificent headgear. The figure holds a staff that at the same time is the P in Pour (For), which is part of the hand-written inscription.

Approaching in the middle distance are a beautifully drawn winged angel walking hand in hand with another figure - undoubtedly symbolic of how Phyllis Lucas herself took Dali under her wing and helped nurture his growing and carefully cultivated popularity and success in America. Yin and Yang hugging beans totter on the mountainous background landscape. Dali's dynamic and bold signature is topped by a crown and cross, adding to the obvious reverence he has shown here to his greatly admired publishers.

The year this lovely and whimsical drawing was made also saw Salvador Dali produce two of his largest and most popular canvases: Apotheosis of the Dollar, and The Railway Station at Perpignan.

Dali seemed to be at an especially creative point at this time in his life. In the case of the Magician drawing, it appears quite clear that his admiration and respect for the Lucas legacy guided the sureness and richness of this work. While many such book dedications were of a sketchy and spontaneous nature, Magician takes on a more seriously artful appearance, lovingly created as a lasting homage to one of the most important and respected couples involved in Salvador Dali's long and prodigious career.