Salvador Dalí

SALVADOR DALÍ I DOMÉNECH (Figueras, Girona, 1904 - 1989).
"Double Niké" or "Double Victory of Samothrace". 1979 (cast in 2003).
Bronze sculpture (lost wax technique), patinated in dark green.
Exemplary 2/6.
Numbered, signed by the artist, with signature of the Arte6 Foundry and Diejasa Edition.
Certified by Robert Descharnes (2004) and Nicolas Descharnes (2014).
This is a limited reedition of 6 pieces from the Clot Collection.
Measurements: 215 x 263 x 96 cm.

The Victory of Samothrace is probably one of the Greek sculptures that have known more tributes and versions throughout the history of art. Dalí could not be less given his fascination for Greek sculpture (especially in its female representations) and its mysteries. The contrapposto of Donatello's David was inspired by the body undulation of the Hellenistic Nike, Boccioni's futuristic sculpture emulated the advancing leg of this winged goddess, etc. Dalí, like his predecessors, also explores the exuberance of the folds fluttering in the wind and the sinuosity of the body, but what dominates in this monumental piece in bronze is the unfolding of the character as if contemplating himself (although he lacks eyes) in a mirror. The theme of the double, linked to the sinister or Freudian unheimlich, appears repeatedly in Dalí's work.

This monumental sculpture comes from the sculpture collection of Isidro Clot. The collection was initially conceived in the summer of 1971 in Port Lligat, where an elderly Dalí, but still with plenty of creative enthusiasm, began to sculpt a series of wax sculptures. The figures were modeled under the hot Mediterranean sun, which made the wax soft and malleable, leaving the delicate fingers of the master from Figueras marked on the surface. In his book "Dalí: The Hard and the Soft Spells for the Magic of Form: Sculptures and Objects", Robert Descharnes, a friend and renowned Dalí expert, describes the process of creating the sculptures. In 1973, 44 sculptures made so far were cast in bronze by his friend Isidro Clot, who ran the Diejasa foundry together with his son-in-law Adrián Campos. The casting process was closely followed by Dalí, a very important aspect that makes the piece in bidding an original of the genius of Port Lligat.

The work we present here is part of a limited reedition of six pieces from the Clot Collection, cast by the company Diejasa. To the same series belong: "Reloj blando", "Venus de los neumáticos", "Geminis" and "Elefante-cisne". The sculptures that make up the Clot Collection reflect Dalí's maturity and distorted classicism, in such a way that they define the themes that disturbed and aroused the curiosity of the surrealist master throughout his life: Ancient Greece, eroticism, psychism, his relationship with Gala, playfulness, Christian iconography... and the paranoiac-critical transfiguration of all these references.