ÓSCAR DOMÍNGUEZ | Los niveles del deseo

Emeterio Gutiérrez Albelo (a gift from the artist) Pérez Piqueras, Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Private Collection, Paris

Galería Rayuela, Madrid

Galería Guillermo de Osma, Madrid (acquired from the above in 1994)

Private Collection (acquired from the above in 1995)

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Círculo de Bellas Artes, Óscar Domínguez, 1933, no. 2 Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Museo Municipal, Óscar Domínguez, 1968, illustrated in the catalogue

New York, The Spanish Institute, From the Volcano. Twentieth Century Artists from the Canaries, 1993, illustrated in colour in the catalogue (with incorrect measurements)

Madrid, Galería Guillermo de Osma, Óscar Domínguez, 1994-95, no. 3, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno; Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Centro de Arte La Granja & Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Óscar Domínguez Antológica 1926-1957, 1996, no. 10, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Madrid, Fundación Telefónica, Óscar Domínguez Surrealista, 2001-02, no. 2, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Marseilles, Musée Cantini, La Part du jeu et du rêve. Óscar Domínguez et le Surréalisme, 2005, no. 3, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Fernando Castro, Óscar Domínguez y el Surrealismo, Madrid, 1978, no. 9, illustrated p. 117 (with incorrect measurements) Pilar Carreño, ‘Deseo en el laberinto: Óscar Domínguez en sus años iniciales’, in Atlántica: revista de arte y pensamiento, no. 02-03, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1991, illustrated in colour p. 62 (as dating from 1933)

Emmanuel Guigon, Óscar Domínguez, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1996, illustrated in colour p. 20 (with incorrect measurements)

Los niveles del deseo ('Levels of Desire') is an important oil from early in Domínguez’s artistic career and one of only fifteen works included in his first individual exhibition at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Tenerife in May 1933. This exhibition was of huge importance to Domínguez; although not officially endorsed by the Parisian Surrealists, its subtitle, ‘Exposición surrealista del pintor Oscar Domínguez’, was a bold declaration of intent on the young artist’s part, announcing his arrival in their world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the exhibition caused a considerable stir among the more conservative inhabitants of the island, although it was extremely well received by the island’s artistic milieu who were quick to identify the Surrealist vision that underpinned his work. Eduardo Westerdahl, writer, artist and founder of the Tenerife-based arts review Gaceta de Arte, described Domínguez in these terms: ‘we affirm that Oscar Domínguez, in his personal life, from his toes to his head, in all the directions of his footsteps, is authentically Surrealist’ (E. Westerdahl, quoted in Óscar Domínguez Antológica 1926-1957 (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., p. 274, translated from Spanish). The writer Domingo López Torres made similar observations, also identifying some key characteristics of the artist’s work: ‘Through the seas and troubled waters of the psyche, navigating between lofty sexual complexes – the open door of Freudian theory – comes Oscar Domínguez, a young painter, surrealist and one of the most promising stars of this island. His painting responds to the themes and demanding principles of the Surrealists. In these paintings he achieves unexpected tonalities and transparencies. From the darkest corners the most audacious forms are prodigiously assembled. Secular forms deformed by exuberant fantasy. Elongated figures; shadowy forms. The paintings of Oscar Domínguez […] – more restrained than those of Dalí – are silent, cold, like a blade in the chest of the viewer’ (D. López Torres, quoted in ibid., p. 275, translated from Spanish).

The overriding theme of the paintings exhibited in 1933 was sexual, and Los niveles del deseo represents a particularly complex exploration of the nature of desire. The imagery – conflating the human and animal – is typical of Domínguez’s style of the 1930s and is at once mysterious and powerful. In the foreground a deer with the breasts and stockinged legs of a woman leaps away, pursued by the lascivious gazes of two other creatures, a horse and a wolf. In the background a woman seems to be literally aflame with desire, her hands converted into torches, whilst a male head in profile watches on. Desire is expressed through the act of watching and Domínguez makes this explicit through the sight lines lightly sketched between horse and deer and the masculine head and female figure. Pilar Carreño explains: ‘the double image is present in this work: the woman in the background sees herself reflected in the hybrid deer, and the man is reflected in the ‘horse’ (black and white), in which coexists two antagonistic forces – the good, in the upper level, and base instinct on the lower level’ (P. Carreño, ‘Deseo en el laberinto: Óscar Domínguez en sus años iniciales’, in Atlántica. Revista de Arte y Pensamiento, no. 02-03, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1991, p. 63, translated from Spanish). The tension between these two forces imbues the work with a dramatic energy that plays out against a backdrop that is typically Surrealist in its uncanny and disquieting atmosphere.

Domínguez would not meet Salvador Dalí until the following year, but his influence can be felt in the present work. The figure of man in profile – who appears in a number of canvases from this period and can be interpreted as the artist himself – is reminiscent of the profiled face that appears in many of Dalí’s earlier works including L’énigme du desir (1929) and Le grand masturbateur (1929; fig. 1). Equally, its dream-like quality, the barren and mysterious landscape and the orchestration of its bizarre panoply of characters all owe something to Dalí’s work although the composition retains a distinctive style and spirit that is unique to Domínguez. Many of the themes and motifs developed in this work – desire, violence, metamorphosis, the white horse, the bearded face in profile – were ones he would develop and return to throughout the 1930s, creating his own lexicon of quixotic imagery and making a highly important contribution to Surrealist art.

 



Expert and Heirs in Defence of Óscar Domínguez Work's Association (Tenerife) confirmed the authenticity of this work.