Oscar Dominguez

Private Collection, France (acquired from the artist circa 1940-50)
Thence by descent

The canvas is not lined. The surface is well preserved. The pigments are bright and fresh. The magnifying glass is stable and securely held in place although two internal faults are visible in the glass along the lower edge. Under ultraviolet light, there is a thin varnish which prevents a thorough examination although some faint spots of fluorescence in the background to the left and below the gramophone head and in the sky at upper right indicate some very minor retouches. This work is in overall very good condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

“He interprets reality with a tenacity that is so consistent that we can say that more than any other, he only paints what he dreams.”

Georges Hugnet, on Óscar Domínguez, 1954. 

Painted in 1936, Composition surréaliste embodies the quintessence of the art of Dominguez. The painter from the Canary Islands had joined the Surrealist group two years before and his paintings from this time are undeniably the most striking of this career. It was in 1934 that Dominguez wrote to André Breton to ask permission to attend the meetings of the Surrealist group. Their first encounter was December that year as the Café Blanche.  It was there that he became acquainted with most of the Surrealist artists, in particular Salvador Dali and Max Ernst who would have a profound influence on his art. From then on, Dominguez would participate in all of the major exhibitions of the group, notably the first International Exhibition of Surrealism in Copenhagen in 1935, then the Surrealist exhibition in 1936 in Santa Cruz in Tenerife, for which he put the French Surrealists in contact with Gaceta de Arte.

1936 was a particularly fruitful year for Dominguez. This was the year that he invented the decalcomania technique that he, along with other artists such as Ernst and Bellmer, would use to exquisite effect. He also perfected the technique of automatic painting that would be at the heart of some of his most powerful works. It was also at this time that his prodigious inventiveness flourished to produce compositions that are as poetic as they are disturbing, comprised of increasingly strange and incongruous juxtapositions. As Georges Hugnet comments, “having become involved with Surrealist painting at a time when it was already well established and successful, Dominguez […] always considered the problem in a novel light and sought, from the outset, a solution that was uniquely personal. And his research led him on the one hand to technical innovation and on the other to imaginative subjects, some of which are quite astounding” (in Óscar Domínguez, peintures récentes, exhibition catalogue,  Galerie Roux-Henschel, 1945).

Composition surréaliste is particularly emblematic of the painter’s method of working in the 1930s. He was seeking to paint in a totally spontaneous manner, letting his thoughts guide him as one idea gave way to another. As he himself explained, “I stand before the canvas and things happen on their own. Very often, one minute before beginning to paint, I do not know what I am going to do. Inspiration arrives unannounced”. Each painting is thus the projection of his internal voyage. In this respect, the present work can be compared to one of Domínguez’s masterpieces, Los Porrones, painted in 1935: in this work, the viewer can follow the painter’s train of thought, beginning with the woman, then the spirals of the sardine tins and then the pitchers and the flowing stream of water. Each of these elements is visually linked, reflecting the painter’s thoughts as they progress with no apparent logic, in a dream-like aesthetic fused with mystery. This same creative process is apparent in Composition surréaliste:  beginning at the top of the steps at the right of the composition, the viewer’s gaze is drawn along the red cape and the cans of sardines before climbing the bull’s skeleton, colliding with the bloody target serving as a base for the gramophone and finally arriving at the nail, the focal point of the whole composition, highlighted by the magnifying glass the artist has chosen to attach to the painting’s frame.

The presence of the magnifying glass in the present composition is characteristic of Domínguez’s inventiveness. Half painting, half object, Composition surréaliste reveals the artist’s predilection for unexpected associations and everyday objects. Other paintings from the same year are constructed in the same manner, such as L’Ouvre-Boîte which includes a can opener in the frame. These works continue the themes of the Surrealist objects created by Domínguez from 1934, which showcase his flair for the fantastical.

However Composition surréaliste does not merely express Domínguez’s passion for objects, it also presents a synthesised vision of the artist’s individual vocabulary. The eyeball, a disturbing motif at the centre of the composition, appears to be a premonition of a dramatic incident that would occur in Domínguez’s life in 1938, when he accidentally took out his friend Victor Brauner’s eye. Astonishingly, this event was foreshadowed in Brauner’s art, in his Autoportrait à l’œil énucléé from 1931 he depicts himself with a gaping eye-socket while Paysage méditerranéen, painted in 1932,  presents a man with a long rod buried in his eye, onto which is fixed an enormous letter D, perhaps referring to Domínguez’s initial. In Domínguez’s art too, several works seem to predict this drama, for instance the recurring presence of a removed eyeball (for instance in his Autoportrait, 1933 or in La Boule rouge, 1935).

The motif of the corrida, an omnipresent theme in Domínguez’s art, is here evoked by the red cape of the bullfighter and the skeleton of the animal. Disturbingly, the sword piercing the cape has a handle which forms a letter D, exactly like the object puncturing the eye in Brauner’s Paysage méditerranéen. Two other recurring motifs are present in this work: the gramophone, a seemingly inexhaustible source of inspiration for the artist, that he would notably employ in Jamais in 1937, when the instrument seems to transform into a carnivorous flower; and above all the tins of sardines and their can openers, through which the painter seeks to reveal all that is hidden or that we are forbidden to see.

A fantastical work of complex layers of meaning, Composition surréaliste is a remarkable synthesis of symbols that are deeply personal for Domínguez, a juxtaposition of the most unusual objects with hidden connotations. This iconic painting perfectly illustrates Georges Hugnet’s words, “in every object […] there lies a dormant flame that, when awakened by us, lights up, convulsing, dazzling our obsessions” ("L’objet utile. A propos d’Óscar Domínguez", in Cahiers d’Art, no. 5-6, 1935).