Salvador Dalí

SALVADOR DALÍ I DOMÈNECH (Figueras, Girona, 1904 - 1989).
"Faun throwing precious jewels".
Patinated bronze, inlaid with cut glass.
With signature and Diejasa/Arte 66 foundry stamp.
Measurements: 42 x 24 x 15 cm.

The faun, mythological figure associated with sensuality and primordial instincts, appears in this Dalinian bronze as a symbol full of dualities. In the classical tradition, the faun is a being half human and half animal, representing both the civilized and the savage. Dalí, a master at uniting opposites, turns the horned head, with its gaping maw, matted beard and bulging eyes into an emitter of beauty (the dazzling jewels), highlighting the paradox between its grotesque appearance and its capacity to generate something valuable and brilliant.

Salvador Dalí was one of the leading exponents of the surrealist movement. His work greatly influenced the course of surrealism during the twenties and thirties, being acclaimed as the creator of the paranoiac-critical method, an essential combination of the real with the imaginary. During his early years, Dalí discovered contemporary painting during a family visit to Cadaqués, where he met the family of Ramon Pichot, an artist who regularly traveled to Paris. Following Pichot's advice, Dalí began to study painting with Juan Núñez. In 1922, Dalí stayed at the famous Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid to begin studying Fine Arts at the San Fernando Academy. However, before his final exams in 1926, he was expelled for claiming that there was no one there fit to examine him. That same year Dalí traveled to Paris for the first time. There he met Picasso, and established some formal characteristics that would become distinctive of all his work from then on. During this period, Dalí held regular exhibitions in both Barcelona and Paris, and joined the surrealist group based in the Parisian neighborhood of Montparnasse. The painter landed in America in 1934, thanks to art dealer Julian Levy. As a result of his first individual exhibition in New York, his international projection was definitively consolidated, and since then he has been showing his work and giving lectures all over the world. Most of his production is gathered in the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueras, followed by the collection of the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg (Florida), the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Salvador Dalí Gallery in Pacific Palisades (California), the Espace Dalí in Montmartre (Paris) or the Dalí Universe in London.