Salvador Dalí

(°1904 – 1989, Figueres, Spain), was an all-round Spanish artist.

During the 1960s, Italian art dealer and collector Benjamin Levi, was working with Dalí. He was encouraging the artist to create bronze sculptures reminiscent of his Surrealist paintings. Today, Levi is the head of Dalí Universe, a company managing one of the largest private collections of three-dimensional artworks by Dalí, which also owns copyrights to several iconic sculptures.

The Boutique Gallery is pleased to exhibit sculptures of this prestigious and unique collection.

From 1921 till 1924, the eccentric artist was studying at the art academy of Madrid. In 1926 he met Picasso and Breton in Paris and in 1929 he joined the Surrealist mouvement. For example The Persistence of Memory (1931), a dream landscape with melting clocks (opposition between hard and soft; the fear of time passing by; criticism on the rigidity of time), is dating back to that period. He wanted to disconnect from reality, from rationality and picture dreams, the subconsciousness, fantasies and fears: his ‘hand painted dream photos’ in an ultra realistic photographic style. The horse (symbol of strength and lust) and the elephants with long and thin legs (symbols of sexual arousal) from the painting The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1946), became famous Dalí themes. He was a master of trompe-l’oeil and perspective. His wife, the Russian Gala, was his muse.

Dalí claimed he received inspiration from the cosmos through his characteristic moustache.

“If you act like a genius, you become one.”