Óscar Domínguez

Acoris. The Surrealist Art Centre, London

Biosca, Galerías de Arte, Madrid (acquired by 1973)

Fondació Bartolome March, Palma de Mallorca

Sale: Christie’s, London, 29th June 2000, lot 335

Private Collection

Sale: Christie’s, London, 2nd February 2004, lot 90

Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

London, Acoris. The Surrealist Art Centre, Surrealist Masters, 1972, no. 22, illustrated in colour in the catalogue (titled Nature Morte avec Oiseaux)

Madrid, Galería Biosca, Óscar Domínguez, 1973

Barcelona, Galería Laietana, Óscar Domínguez, 1974, no. 33

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno; Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Centro de Arte ‘La Granja’ & Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Óscar Domínguez Antológica 1926-1957, 1996, no. 78, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

William Gaunt, The Surrealists, London, 1972, no. 89, illustrated p. 227

Gérard Xuriguera, Óscar Domínguez, Paris, 1973, illustrated pp. 22-23

Fernando Castro, Óscar Domínguez y el Surrealismo, Madrid, 1978, no. 88, illustrated p. 131

Marianne Oesterreicher-Mollwo, Surrealism and Dadaism: provocative destruction, the path within, and the exacerbation of the problem of a reconciliation of art and life, Oxford, 1979, no. 55, illustrated in colour p. 86

Rodolfo de Sosa, Óscar Domínguez, l’œuvre peint. Catalogue Raisonné, Paris, 1989, vol. 1, no. 54, illustrated p. 87

The canvas is lined and has been placed on a new stretcher. There is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. Apart from some frame-wear and abrasion to the framing edges, and some very fine lines of stable craquelure, mainly in the lower half of the composition, this work is in very good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although the green and blue tones are more vibrant and the greys and blacks are more neutral and less warm in the original.
"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."

Throughout his life Domínguez’s work underwent many transformations, from his early Surrealist canvases, through the experiments with decalcomania, to the stark linearity of his late works. Painted in 1942, El quinqué y la paloma, exemplifies his work during the war years when he was increasingly influenced by both Picasso and De Chirico. José Pierre describes this influence: ‘What the Canarian painter inherited from the founder of metaphysical painting was the disquieting profundity, the singularity of atmosphere and the intense poetic weight of objects. Throughout his “synthetic period”… Óscar Domínguez took from De Chirico his oneiric atmosphere, and from Picasso, the savage truth with which he renders beings and objects’ (J. Pierre in Óscar Domínguez. Antológica. 1926-1957 (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., p. 28, translated from Spanish).

Along with a Surrealist emphasis on the symbolic significance of objects, the works of this period often feature a newly geometric division of space and depth, as Marcel Jean wrote: ‘The signs of aridity multiply. Perhaps influenced by the appearance of the Polyèdres, one of the mathematical objects photographed by Man Ray, the painter [Domínguez] unleashes across his worlds a vegetation of steppes, sharp bladed plants which ultimately fill the whole canvas with their dense prismatic clusters, networks of long, sharp needles like images of death in a crystalline form’ (quoted in La part du jeu et du rêve Óscar Domínguez et le surréalisme 1906-1957 (exhibition catalogue), Musée Cantini, Marseille, 2005, p. 37, translated from French). Domínguez first experimented with these intricate geometric systems in the late 1930s with works including Nostalgie de l’espace (fig. 1) where the network of prisms seems to be ever-expanding and threaten to overwhelm the canvas space. In the present work, although they are confined to the background with Domínguez's contrasting broad black brushstrokes against a more refined nexus of blue and white lines, the elegant triangles nonetheless appear to overrun. Spilling forward through the canvas, they imbue the composition with a dynamic energy whilst emphasising the importance of the still life objects at the heart of the composition.