1979 "Don Quixote" Silver Edition Bas Relief Sculpture With Case by Salvador Dalí

Description

Artist: SALVADOR DALÍ (1904-1989)
Title: DON QUIXOTE
Medium & Surface: BAS RELIEF WITH PRECIOUS METAL PATINA
Signed/Numbered: STAMPED; SIGNED IN … more Artist: SALVADOR DALÍ (1904-1989)
Title: DON QUIXOTE
Medium & Surface: BAS RELIEF WITH PRECIOUS METAL PATINA
Signed/Numbered: STAMPED; SIGNED IN THE MOLD BOTTOM RIGHT
Number: 130 OF 175 [SILVER EDITION]
Year Created: 1979
Country of Creation: UNITED STATES

Bas Relief Dimensions: 18.75 x 26.5 x 2 INCHES
Presentation Case Dimensions:* 21 x 29.375 x 3.25 INCHES
*This work of art is ready to hang. It can also be stored or put on display in its original presentation case, which is included.

Additional Info: HIGHLY COLLECTIBLE WORK BY SALVADOR DALÍ FEATURING ONE OF HIS MOST ICONIC SUBJECTS, DON QUIXOTE. THIS WORK ALSO COMES IN ITS ORIGINAL PRESENTATION CASE, WHICH IS RARE. EACH BAS RELIEF IN THE EDITION WAS STAMPED, PLATED, BACKED, AND HAND FINISHED. THE EDITION WAS PUBLISHED BY MARTIN LAWRENCE LIMITED EDITIONS, VAN NUYS, CALIFORNIA.
Artist Info/Bio: ARTIST BIOGRAPHY DOCUMENT IS INCLUDED
Documentation: CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY BY CALIFORNIA FINE ART BROKERS IS INCLUDED

"Don Quixote," an original silver edition bas relief with previous metal patina by Salvador Dalí, is a piece for the true collector. Cervantes' novel, Don Quixote, is perhaps one of Dalí's most famous recurring themes – his muse, only secondary to that of his wife, Gala. Dalí's ability to capture emotion in its simplest form is evident in this exceptionally executed work. This piece of art would make a great addition to an art collection and enhance most any home, perfect for those who have an affinity for Dalí's works, surrealism, Don Quixote, Cervantes, Spanish literature, or figurative art.

Not so easily seen from the images is the unique three-dimensionality of the work, with the main subject projecting out at the viewer. This is a highly collectible work, which includes its original presentation case. Forty-one years after it was produced, it is rare to find Dalí bas reliefs in great condition and with their original case. The work is ready to hang with original hardware. Some collectors also choose to keep the bas relief in the case for display or storage. Others have chosen to incorporate a custom frame around the sculpture. There are many options.

Don Quixote was a novel published in two parts (part 1, 1605, and part 2, 1615) by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, and is one of the most widely read classics of Western literature. Originally conceived as a parody of the chivalric romances that had long been in literary vogue, it describes realistically what befalls an aging knight who, his head bemused by reading such romances, sets out on his old horse Rocinante, with his pragmatic squire, Sancho Panza, to seek adventure. Widely and immediately translated (first English translation 1612), the novel was a great and continuing success and is considered a prototype of the modern novel.

An eccentric and masterful Surrealist in painting and in life, Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquis of Dalí de Púbol, known professionally as Salvador Dalí, wrote in his diary two years before entering art school in Madrid during the early 1920s: “I’ll be a genius...Perhaps I'll be despised and misunderstood, but I'll be a genius, a great genius.” Throughout his life, Dalí cultivated eccentricity and exaggerated a predisposition towards narcissistic exhibitionism, claiming that his creative energies were derived from it. The spectrum of imagery from fantastic to nightmarish visions which Dalí produced is supreme evidence of those idiosyncrasies.

Born in Figueres, Spain, Dalí first studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Madrid and was influenced by metaphysical painters de Chirico and Carra while there. Equally admiring the meticulous realism of the pre-Raphaelites and French 19th century painters, he began to blend conceptual styles and technique. Beginning in 1927, Dalí exhibited in Madrid and Barcelona, earning a reputation for being one of the most promising younger painters. A visit to Paris in 1928 brought him into contact with Picasso and the Surrealists Miro, Masson, Ernst, Tanguy and Andre Breton; shortly thereafter, his first exhibition brought Dalí firmly into the Surrealist movement where he was a leading figure during the next ten years.

Dalí transformed the definition of Surrealism, which combined pure psychic automatism expressing the unconscious process of thought, dream and associated realities to include what he called “critical paranoia,” a theory that embraced delusion while remaining aware that reason has been deliberately suspended. With his realistic detail, Dalí's paintings describe a hallucinatory reality which is often contradicted by the vision and hallucinatory character his imagery describes; “The Persistence of Memory” (1931), depicting perfectly detailed clocks melting in a Catalan landscape, conveys that theory.

Although a collaborator with Surrealist filmmaker Luis Bunuel, Dalí, whose work was identified with Surrealism more than any other artist by the public, was expelled from the movement by Breton in 1937. After visiting Italy the same year, he briefly changed his style of painting to reflect the academic influence of Raphael before returning to a more private mythology. By 1940 he left for 15 years to the United States. With his first retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1941, Dalí devoted his energies towards publicity during those years before returning to Spain in 1955.

Dalí and his wife Gala had one of the most envied and studied loves of all time. They were married for almost 50 years. She was his muse, collaborator, business manager, and publisher. She is depicted in countless Dalí works, including one of his most famous pieces, “Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln-Homage to Rothko.” Before her relationship with Dalí, Gala was the Russian wife of Paul Éluard, a French poet and one of the founders of the surrealist movement. They had a daughter, Cécile Éluard, who passed away in 2016.

In the early 1980s, Dalí’s health took a catastrophic turn. His right hand trembled terribly with Parkinson-like symptoms. It is believed that Gala had become senile and had been dosing him with a dangerous cocktail of unprescribed medicine that damaged his nervous system. Gala died in 1982 and Salvador Dalí died in 1989 from heart failure.

Included in major museums worldwide, Dalí's work continues to fascinate. less