Salvador Dalí

Marquis Georges de Cuevas, Monte-Carlo
Hans Schemke, France
Private Collection, France

Robert & Nicolas Descharnes, Dalí, Le dur et le mou, Sortilège et magie des formes, Sculptures et objets, Azay-le-Rideau, 2004, no. 580, illustrated p. 228

Good condition. Original canvas. There is a layer of varnish on the surface. Under UV light, there appear to be five to ten pin size dots of inpainting near bottom edge. Otherwise fine.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Fig. 1  Salvador Dalí with the jowel El Ojo del Tiempo in a photograph by Philippe Halsman, 1956

Fig. 2  Illustration published in the magazine Click, September 1942

Throughout his life, Dalí was fascinated by the world of fashion and entertainment. In the 1940s, the Marquis de Cuevas, a capricious, flamboyant patron and fervent ballet and opera enthusiast, chose Dalí to create the decor and costumes for several ballets including Tristan Fou. The wealth of his wife Margaret Strong, the granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, enabled him to promote a luxurious and eccentric art that was in line with Dalí's whimsical imagination.

The aim was to create a monumental oil and tempera backdrop for Tristan fou, Le premier ballet paranoïaque basé sur le mythe éternel de l'amour jusque dans la mort. The ballet, performed on December 15th 1944 in New York, was produced by Ballet International, managed by the Marquis de Cuevas. Dalí's interpretation of the story deployed themes from Wagner's Tristan and Iseult. The choreography was by Léonide Massine, the décor and costumes were by Dalí.

As Ian Gibson underlines in his Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí:  "Dalí [...] was pleased with his work – and with a critique that appeared in the New York Times [in] 1944. The writer had been very impressed by Dalí's backdrop, and felt that in scenery design the painter has found his true metier: 'The fact  becomes clear. Dalí needs a stage with greater urgency than he needs an art galley. His surrealism (which, framed from the wall, has long since settled into formula), thrives in wide spaces. There its sophistication, no longer just a well-memorized dernier cri, acquires an effect of preciosity that is in sense monumental" (Ian Gibson, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí, London, 1997, p. 432).

In this work we see rows of eyes, a characteristic of the artist's obsessive imagination and a recurring motif in his oeuvre. These eyes, like those that surrounded the artist in a feature in the review Click announcing the publication of his autobiography (The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, fig. 2), symbolise the artist's obsessive desire to become a clairvoyant in order to explore the unconscious.