Description

Author:

Salvador Dalí i Domènech, on a sculpture by Paul Hamann

Date:

1933-1934

Technique:

Oil paint and watercolour on plaster of Paris

Dimensions:

40,5 x 17,5 x 18,2 cm

Signature:

At the base: S, DALI
On the back: HAMAN/PARIS/1933

Location:

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

A sculptural portrait of Joella Lloyd (1907-2004), subsequently Joella Bayer, the first wife of the New York gallery owner Julien Levy, one of the foremost champions of Dalí’s work in the United States. In this case the process of creating a manipulated sculpture can be described. On the one hand, the inscription on the work itself indicates that the plaster head was the work of the German sculptor Paul Hamann (1891-1973). On the other hand, the intervention with pigment is an original creation by Dalí, conceived especially to complete this sculptural portrait. The composition on the front of the base or plinth is very close to the 1928 oil painting Inaugural Gooseflesh, while the face, divided into two symmetrical halves, is painted with a landscape that is absolutely characteristic of Dalí’s work of the first half of the 1930s. On the right temple, below the hair, a discontinuous line of black dots outlines the face, and the ants lower down on the cheek can be identified as an implicit association with the Retrospective Bust of a Woman of 1933.

Provenance

1. Mrs. Joella Bayer, 1934-?
2. Faggionato Fine Arts, Londres, 1994-?

Observations

Exhibitions

1. 1942, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 20th Century Portraits, 09/12/1942 - 24/01/1943, no reference
2. 1994, Fagionato Fine Arts, Surrealist Sculptures, 12/10/1994 - 16/12/1994, no reference
3. 2012, Paris, Centre Pompidou, Dalí, 21/11/2012 - 25/03/2013, no reference
4. 2013, Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Dalí. Todas las sugestiones poéticas y todas las posibilidades plásticas, 27/04/2013 - 02/09/2013, no reference

Bibliography

1. Monroe Wheeler, 20th century portraits, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1942, pp. 103, 135, ill.
2. Robert Descharnes, Dalí, l'oeuvre et l'homme, Edita, Lausanne, 1984, p. 172, ill.
3. Robert Descharnes, Dalí, sein Werk, sein Leben: die Eroberung, des Irrationalen, Dumont, Köln, 1984, p. 172, ill.
4. Robert Descharnes, Dalí, the work, the man: 1934-1944, Kodansha, [Tòquio], 1984, p. 172, ill.
5. Robert Descharnes, Dalí : la obra y el hombre, Tusquets, Edita, Barcelona, Lausanne, 1984, p. 172, ill.
6. Robert Descharnes, Salvador Dalí : the work, the man, Henry N. Abrams, New York, 1989, p. 172, ill.
7. "Artists' Model", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 16/10/1989, St. Louis, MO, p. 4A
8. Stella Frigerio, "Des records, toujours des records!", Gazette de Lausanne, num. 275, 25/11/1989, Lausanne, p. [26], ill.
9. Meredith Etherington-Smith, The Persistence of memory : a biography of Dalí, Random House, New York, 1993, p. 184
10. Robert Descharnes, Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí, 1904 -1989, Benedikt Taschen, Köln, 1994, p. 219, ill.
11. Marco Di Capua, Dalí, Librairie Gründ, Paris, 1994, p. 175, ill.
12. Surrealist Sculptures, Faggionato Fine Arts, Londres, 1994, pp. [10-11]
13. Clara Isabel De Bustos, "La Reina presidió la entrega del «Retrato de Joella» al CARS", ABC, 18/05/1995, Madrid, p. 59
14. Marco Di Capua, Salvador Dalí : la vita e l'opera, Mondadori Electa, Milano, 2002, p. 175, ill.
15. Ricard Mas Peinado, Universdalí, Lunwerg, Barcelona, Madrid, 2003, pp. 229, 314
16. Robert Descharnes, Nicolas Descharnes, Dalí : le dur et le mou : sortilège et magie des formes, sculptures et objets, Eccart, [Azay le Rideau], 2003, pp. 28-29, ill.
17. Marco Di Capua, Salvador Dalí : su vida, su obra, Carroggio, Barcelona, 2003, p. 175, ill.
18. Françoise Lechien, Dalí, Dalí! ou l'éclosion apothéosique d'un sculpteur, Delta, Bruxelles, 2004, p. 75, ill.
19. Valeriano Bozal, "Retrat de Joella", Revista de Girona, núm. 222, 01-02/2004, Girona, pp. 71-75, ill.
20. Carmen Fernández Aparicio, Adelina Moya, Josefina Alix, Forma, signo y realidad: escultura española 1900-1935 = Forma, zeinua eta errealitatea: espainiar eskultura 1900-1935, Fundación Museo Jorge Oteiza = Jorge Oteiza Fundazio Museoa, Alzuza, 2010, pp. 78-79, ill.
21. Dalí, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2012, p. [190], ill.
22. Dalí : Todas las sugestiones poéticas y todas las posibilidades plásticas, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, TF Editores, Madrid, 2013, p. [190], ill.

Related works

• Retrospective Bust of a Woman 1933

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