Salvador Dalí

Knoedler & Co., New York
Private Collection, Washington, D.C.
Thence by descent

New York, Knoedler & Co., Dalí, 1943, no. 6, illustrated as part of a larger composition n.p.

Executed on cream wove paper. The pigment is fresh and well preserved. There is matt staining approximately 1/2 inch wide along the entire perimeter of the sheet. There is some surface staining to the lower left quadrant, as visible in the illustration. There are spots of foxing, most notably to the center and the right half of the composition. There is some minor surface dirt to the lower right quadrant and some faintly visible water staining to the upper center. This work is in good condition.
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The present work is a rendering of studies for the fantastical costumes of Dalí’s unrealized ballet entitled Mysteria. Dalí worked on several ballets and performances in the 1930s, including Bacchannale (originally named in German Venusberg) which was principally intended to open in London. Plans were changed dramatically upon the outbreak of war in September 1939, and the production moved to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Dalí designed both the set and the costumes, which were produced by Coco Chanel (see fig. 3), and the choreography was arranged by Leonide Massine for the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo. The project presented Dalí with an opportunity to elaborate upon his astounding Surrealist iconography on a truly epic scale. This experience was highly influential upon him, inspiring him to explore the genre in greater depth in his own practice.

Dalí was introduced to the United States by the art dealer Julian Levy in 1936, shortly before the opening of Alfred H. Barr's seminal exhibition Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art. This was the beginning of an incredibly productive phase in Dalí's career that saw him diversify his work, taking on commissions for advertising and working on numerous design projects for the theater, cinema and ballet. An expansion of thematic schema introduced in the artist’s 1939 presentation at the World’s Fair and an exploration of his fervently felt Catholicism, this work was produced for Dalí’s successful 1943 exhibition at Knoedler Galleries in New York, a show which cemented his importance on an international scale.
Conceptualized by Dalí, this highly religious spectacle was largely based on medieval morality plays which would have been performed outside cathedrals as an educational tool for the largely illiterate peasantry. Over the course of Mysteria, the dance of the demon and the angel, both of which exist in one bifurcated form, undergo a transformation in the same vein as that of a religious conversion. The diabolical force takes over the nude, innocent figure, but is eventually trumped by the angel as it moves through the didactically numbered segmentations. Intended to be viewed from both sides, the highly structured yet oddly diaphanous costumes allow the main action to be performed by a single dancer. Speaking to the fundamental Freudian theme of the subconscious versus the cognizant, it is an intimate examination of the motif which never ceased to obsess the artist.

Iconographically rich, the present work displays several recognizable motifs from the artist’s oeuvre such as the horned skull, the hollowed face and the chimerical wings, the formal aspect of which suggests Dalí’s own upward-turned mustache. Prefiguring the renowned set creation Dalí produced for Hitchcock’s 1945 thriller Spellbound (see fig. 1), the wide glassy eye in conjunction with the crimson lips in the final section of the dance and of the composition demonstrates Dalí’s unequaled ability to mutate forms so that they may be read synchronically as more than one being. The rotten teeth taking form in the final cadre may reference the influential Surrealist playwright Raymond Roussel, a friend and intellectual compatriot of Dalí who tragically took his own life in 1933, and who frequently used teeth as an enigmatic symbol of both brilliance and decay.

Typifying Dalí’s sheer creative energy, the design is executed with sensitivity and delicacy, while maintaining the elements so celebrated in his oeuvre that have come to define him as a pioneer of Surrealism.