Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on 2 May 2012
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Printemps nécrophilique.
Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on 2 May 2012 was be led by Salvador Dalí's Printemps nécrophilique from 1936. Painted at the height of the artist’s most creative years in Paris, the canvas exemplifies his unique aesthetic at its most refined and sensational. Printemps nécrophilique has not appeared on the market in nearly 15 years and is estimated to sell for $8/12 million*.
Printemps nécrophilique.
Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on 2 May 2012 was be led by Salvador Dalí's Printemps nécrophilique from 1936. Painted at the height of the artist’s most creative years in Paris, the canvas exemplifies his unique aesthetic at its most refined and sensational. Printemps nécrophilique has not appeared on the market in nearly 15 years and is estimated to sell for $8/12 million*.
“Surrealism is the last great movement of 20th century modernism to be fully appreciated in the marketplace, and a number of new benchmarks have been set just over the course of the last year,” commented Simon Shaw, Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Department in New York.
“In February 2011, Sotheby’s set a new record for a Surrealist work of art at auction when Salvador Dalí’s Portrait de Paul Eluard sold for $21.7 million. That same sale saw a new record for a work on paper by René Magritte set when his Le Maître d’École brought just over $4 million. Just three months later, Sotheby’s set a new record for Paul Delvaux when his Les Cariatides achieved $9 million. Surrealism continues to present exciting opportunities for collectors given the wide range of material available at varying price points – literature, works on paper, paintings, sculpture and objects – and the fact that great masterworks remain in private hands. Additionally, given that the roots of much recent art lie in Surrealism, it crosses over well with collections of Contemporary art.”
By the time Dalí painted Printemps nécrophilique in 1936, he had established the style and the personal iconography that characterizes his most successful compositions. The eerie infusion of dreamscape with hyper-real figural elements is a hallmark of the artist’s approach. In the present work, Dalí depicts two figures that offer a confounding combination of anonymity and specificity. He envelops the figures in a wide expanse of plains and sky, reminiscent of the endless landscape of his native Catalonia.
The lithe and graceful male figure at left recalls the artist's own profile, which will appear again in the artist's masterpiece painted the next year, Métamorphose de Narcisse. The flower-headed dominant female figure is one of the artist's most memorable characters, appearing in significant compositions such as Femmes aux têtes de fleurs retrouvant sur la plage la dépouille d'un piano à queue and staged in London for the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition.
The canvas was originally owned by Elsa Schiaparelli, the couterière active in Paris during the first half of the 20th century. She staged momentous events in Paris and occasionally collaborated with Dalí - their work together is explored in detail in a current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations.
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Salvador Dali
Cinq personnages surréalistes: femmes à tête de fleurs, femme à tiroirs (évocation du jugement de paris)
Gouache, brush and ink on pink paper
48.9 by 63.8cm; 191⁄4 by 251⁄8in.
Executed in 1937
Est. £400,000 - 600,000
Executed in 1937 as a present for the renowned fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, this exquisite drawing exemplifies the blend of hyperrealism and surreal metamorphosis that was a hallmark of Dalí’s mature style. The work also brilliantly combines some of the artist’s most iconic transformations of the female figure. Dalí and Schiaparelli met in the 1930s and subsequently collaborated on a number of projects. The fashion designer owned a number of works by the artist, including both the present work – for which she apparently specified the use of pink paper – and the earlier oil
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Christie's 2004
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Christie's 2009
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Christie's 2010
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Christie's 2011
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Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Chevaliers en parade
Pr.$1,426,500
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Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)
Les mille et une grâce des mille et un
Pr.£1,138,850($1,828,993)
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Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
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Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
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“In February 2011, Sotheby’s set a new record for a Surrealist work of art at auction when Salvador Dalí’s Portrait de Paul Eluard sold for $21.7 million. That same sale saw a new record for a work on paper by René Magritte set when his Le Maître d’École brought just over $4 million. Just three months later, Sotheby’s set a new record for Paul Delvaux when his Les Cariatides achieved $9 million. Surrealism continues to present exciting opportunities for collectors given the wide range of material available at varying price points – literature, works on paper, paintings, sculpture and objects – and the fact that great masterworks remain in private hands. Additionally, given that the roots of much recent art lie in Surrealism, it crosses over well with collections of Contemporary art.”
By the time Dalí painted Printemps nécrophilique in 1936, he had established the style and the personal iconography that characterizes his most successful compositions. The eerie infusion of dreamscape with hyper-real figural elements is a hallmark of the artist’s approach. In the present work, Dalí depicts two figures that offer a confounding combination of anonymity and specificity. He envelops the figures in a wide expanse of plains and sky, reminiscent of the endless landscape of his native Catalonia.
The lithe and graceful male figure at left recalls the artist's own profile, which will appear again in the artist's masterpiece painted the next year, Métamorphose de Narcisse. The flower-headed dominant female figure is one of the artist's most memorable characters, appearing in significant compositions such as Femmes aux têtes de fleurs retrouvant sur la plage la dépouille d'un piano à queue and staged in London for the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition.
The canvas was originally owned by Elsa Schiaparelli, the couterière active in Paris during the first half of the 20th century. She staged momentous events in Paris and occasionally collaborated with Dalí - their work together is explored in detail in a current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations.
Salvador Dali
Cinq personnages surréalistes: femmes à tête de fleurs, femme à tiroirs (évocation du jugement de paris)
Gouache, brush and ink on pink paper
48.9 by 63.8cm; 191⁄4 by 251⁄8in.
Executed in 1937
Est. £400,000 - 600,000
Executed in 1937 as a present for the renowned fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, this exquisite drawing exemplifies the blend of hyperrealism and surreal metamorphosis that was a hallmark of Dalí’s mature style. The work also brilliantly combines some of the artist’s most iconic transformations of the female figure. Dalí and Schiaparelli met in the 1930s and subsequently collaborated on a number of projects. The fashion designer owned a number of works by the artist, including both the present work – for which she apparently specified the use of pink paper – and the earlier oil
Sotheby’s London Surrealist Art Evening Sale on 5February 2013
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One of Salvador Dalí’s most accomplished portraits Portrait of Mrs Harrison Williams, was commissioned directly from the artist and painted by him in 1943. Estimated at £1.5-2 million, the painting – offered for the first time at auction - depicts Countess Mona Bismarck (1897-1983), who was at the time of the portrait married to Harrison Williams, reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in America.
After their marriage in 1926 she swiftly became known as one of the most glamorous and beautiful women of her day; becoming the first American to be acclaimed as ‘the best-dressed woman in the world’ by the luminaries of fashion.
Dalí's dazzling depiction of the legendary Mona Bismarck is filled with classical allusions and Surrealist symbolism making it one of the most ambitious pictures he had produced by this point in his career. The painting was executed just three years after Dalí arrived in New York City, having fled Paris with his wife Gala in 1940. After his arrival, he was swiftly assimilated into the group of European Surrealists that had coalesced there at the outbreak of World War II. Together with them, he mingled with many of New York’s social luminaries, receiving from them prestigious commissions for works such as this, and the portrait of Helena Rubinstein sold at Sotheby’s New York for $2.65m in May 2011.
Sotheby’s London February 2011 sale saw a record price at auction achieved for any work by Salvador Dalí with the sale of
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Portrait de Paul Éluard for£13.5 million (pre-sale estimate £3.5-5 million) from the private collection sale Looking Closely.
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Sotheby's 2014
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LOT SOLD. 146,500 GBP
Portrait de Paul Éluard for£13.5 million (pre-sale estimate £3.5-5 million) from the private collection sale Looking Closely.
Sotheby’s 2009
Girafe en feu” (Giraffe on Fire), a large gouache on paper signed by Salvador Dalí in 1937 belongs to the early phase of Surrealism, rarely seen at auction these days. Sotheby’s gave the rare work a $150,000 to $200,000 estimate. Obviously too low, it could easily have been doubled. But the best specialists never imagined that it might end up at $1.87 million, and set an auction record for any work on paper by Dalí.
Sotheby's 2014
LOT SOLD. 146,500 GBP
Christie's 2004
Christie's 2009
Christie's 2010
Christie's 2011
Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Chevaliers en parade
Pr.$1,426,500
Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)
Les mille et une grâce des mille et un
Pr.£1,138,850($1,828,993)
Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Christie's 2013
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Christie's 2014
Christie's 2014
National Gallery (Washington DC)
- Dalí, Salvador
- , Spanish, 1904 - 1989
- The Sacrament of the Last Supper
- 1955
- oil on canvas
- overall: 166.7 x 267 cm (65 5/8 x 105 1/8 in.)
- framed: 202.6 x 302 cm (79 3/4 x 118 7/8 in.)
- Chester Dale Collection
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- Dalí, Salvador
- , Spanish, 1904 - 1989
- Chester Dale
- 1958
- oil on canvas
- overall: 88.8 x 58.9 cm (34 15/16 x 23 3/16 in.)
- framed: 111.7 x 81.3 x 6 cm (44 x 32 x 2 3/8 in.)
- Chester Dale Collection