78 - SALVADOR DALÍ I DOMÈNECH (Figueras, Girona, 1904–1989).

SALVADOR DALÍ I DOMÈNECH (Figueras, Girona, 1904–1989). “Madonna with the Serpent,” 1966. Silver-plated plaster. Signed and dated. The polychrome is missing in places. With a label on the back referencing the restaurant De Buena Mesa. Framed and mounted by Joan Durán. Measurements: 49.5 x 33 x 6.5 (plaster); 62 x 46 x 12 cm (frame). Typical Dalinian elements decorate the frame of this relief of the Immaculate Conception: a group of snails, alluding to the Surrealist master’s encounter with Sigmund Freud, are flanked by two eggs symbolizing fertility—a motif frequently repeated in Dalí’s oeuvre, which even adorns the roof of the Salvador Dalí Museum in Figueras. During his early years, Dalí discovered contemporary painting during a family visit to Cadaqués, where he met the family of Ramón Pichot, an artist who traveled regularly to Paris. Following Pichot’s advice, Dalí began studying painting with Juan Núñez. In 1922, Dalí stayed at the famous Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid to begin his studies in Fine Arts at the San Fernando Academy. However, before his final exams in 1926, he was expelled for claiming that no one at the academy was qualified to examine him. That same year, Dalí traveled to Paris for the first time. There he met Picasso and established certain formal characteristics that would become distinctive features of his entire body of work from that point on. During this period, Dalí held regular exhibitions in both Barcelona and Paris and joined the Surrealist group based in the Montparnasse neighborhood of Paris. The painter arrived in America in 1934, thanks to the art dealer Julian Levy. Following his first solo exhibition in New York, his international reputation was definitively established, and from then on he would exhibit his work and give lectures all over the world. Most of his body of work is housed at the Dalí Theater-Museum in Figueras, followed by the collection at the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg (Florida), the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Salvador Dalí Gallery in Pacific Palisades (California), the Espace Dalí in Montmartre (Paris), and the Dalí Universe in London.