Salvador Dalí

Private Collection, France

(probably) Paris, Galerie Renou et Colle, Salvador Dalí, 1937

André Breton & Paul Eluard, Dictionnaire abrégé du Surréalisme, Paris, 1938, illustrated p. 61

Robert Descharnes & Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí, L'Oeuvre peint, Cologne, 1993, vol. I, no. 652, illustrated p. 293 ; vol. II, catalogued p. 757

Gala-Salvador Dalí Fundation, Salvador Dalí Catalogue raisonné, no. 458, illustrated online at www.salvador-dali.org

Executed on thick, buff-colored wove paper, which appears to be hand-made on the basis of the deckled edges. At the upper right and left corners, areas of reserve, each with a tack hole in the center, are evidence of the means by which the artist secured the drawing during the working process. The medium is very fresh. The charcoal is slightly rubbed at the upper left in a diagonal mark. There is a shallow horizontal abrasion across the top of the sheet and the extreme right edge from a previous mat. This work is in excellent condition.
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The shadow of the Spanish Civil War extends over Dalí's surreal dreamscape in Girafe en feu.  Painted the year after the war broke out in 1936, the present work is from a series depicting a burning giraffe, including Girafe en feu in the Kunstmuseum, Basel and Inventions of Monsters in the Art Institute of Chicago.  Dalí described his image of the burning giraffe as "the masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster" that was a premonition of war and the chaos that he feared would soon engulf Europe.  But the image also had more light-hearted symbolism, as it was featured in a film project with the Marx Brothers called Giraffes on Horseback Salad.  Dalí once explained why he thought the giraffe was an appropriate choice of this project: "Slapstick humour.  How could that better be expressed than by these giraffes with their burning necks." (quoted in M. Taylor, "Giraffes on Horseback Salad," Dalí & Film (exhibition catalogue), Tate Museum, London, 2007, p. 143).