Oscar Dominguez

Private Collection, Barcelona
Sale : Binoche, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 11th June 1979
Galerie de Seine, Paris (acquired in 1982)
Private Collection, France

Paris, Galerie Isy Brachot & Galerie de Seine, Le Musée volé de Michel Lancelot, 1979, no. 20
Paris, Galerie de Seine, Surréalisme et abstraction 1921-1960, 1982, n.n.
Marseilles, Musée Cantini, La Part du jeu et du rêve, Oscar Dominguez et le surréalisme 1906-1957, no. 71
Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Wilhem-Hack Museum, Gegen jede vernunft surrealismus Paris-Prag, 2009, no. 110
Santa Cruz de Tenerife, TEA (Tenerife Espacio de las Artes) Oscar Dominguez, una existencia de papel, 2011, n.n.
Saint-Louis (Alsace), Espace d'Art Contemporain Fernet-Branca, Chassé-croisé Dada-Surréaliste 1916-1969, 2012, no. 73 

Rodolfo de Sosa, Oscar Domingez, L'œuvre peint, vol. 1, Paris, 1989, no. 61, illustratred p. 93
Oscar Domínguez, El Surrealismo volcánico (catalogue d'exposition), Paris, 2006, illustrated p. 97
Georges Sebbag, Memorabilia, Dada & Surréalisme 1916-1970, Paris, 2010, illustrated p. 133

The canvas is not lined. UV light reveals two areas of retouching in the lower left quadrant, one corresponds to a repaired vertical hairline tear to the canvas. Another patch fluoresces above the telephone cradle near the right edge; and there are intermittent patches of retouching in the orange-brown to the left of the dial. Smaller spots fluoresce at the bottom of the yellow shape in the upper right corner, on the handle of the revolver, along the upper edge and in the lower left corner. Otherwise this work is in overall good condition.
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Though Oscar Dominguez never spoke directly about death, it was a theme that profoundly marked his life and work. Afflicted with a rare illness, he would regularly experience episodes of misery and despair, which expressed themselves by a tendency towards depression and anxiety, leading to his suicide in 1957. Brassaï described him as follows: “Beneath a calm appearance a demon inhabits this large body […] I have seen Dominguez brandish a knife or a revolver, creating panic and clearing the space around himself” (Brassaï , May 26^th 1945, in Brassaï, Conversations avec Picasso, Paris, Gallimard, 1964, republished 1997, p. 257). This tendency for morbidity, expressed through the theme of death, is often present in his paintings, symbolised by a revolver, as in this present artwork, or by an arrow or a bloody scene.

In the months that followed the outbreak of the Second World War, the background of Dominguez’s paintings became full of angular networks, armatures or odd polygonal foliage. He was a great admirer of Giorgio de Chirico’s art, and we can suppose that this new geometrical rigour that was so characteristic of his work in the 1940s, may have been inspired by the Italian artist’s use of perspective. It was also during this period that figurative elements from Dominguez’ singular universe reappeared as recurring motifs, for instance the revolver from the series La Fin du Voyage, to which the present painting belongs. This revolver, that Oscar Dominguez repeatedly painted, is associated in this work with a telephone receiver left off the hook, perhaps an allusion to his relationship with Victor Brauner that had recently ended.