Salvador Dalí

SALVADOR DALÍ I DOMÉNECH (Figueras, Girona, 1904 - 1989).
"Woman Aflame", conceived and cast in 1980.
Lost wax bronze.
Signed and numbered.
With Perseus foundry stamp.
Exemplary 3/8. The monumental edition of the sculpture consists of 12 copies (8 copies numbered from 1/8 to 8/8, plus 4 EA numbered from EA 1/4 to EA 4/4).
Work currently on display at the MOCO Museum in Barcelona.
Certificates:
- Attached photocopy of the certificate of authenticity issued by the world expert on Dalí, Nicolas Descharnes.
- Attached photocopy of the certificate of authenticity issued by Beniamino Levi, president of Dalí Universe.
Work cataloged in the official Catalogue Raisonné of Dalí's sculptural works compiled by Robert and Nicolas Descharnes, "The Hard and the Soft, Sculptures and Objects" published in 2004. The sculpture is on page 255, ref. 655.
Measurements: 360 x 115 x 95 cm.

In this monumental sculpture by Dalí, some of his most intimate obsessions are synthesized and oversized. It is a spectacular transfer of the emblematic oil painting "The Giraffe in Flames" (Basel Art Museum), but it is not limited to being a sculptural version of his 1937 painting. The imposing female body is curved at torso level, bending backwards and covering her eyes with her right hand, thus extending the gesture of disorientation and loss of the woman with drawers in the 1937 painting. The elements of fire and the drawers converge in the statue as premonitory and psychological symbols. The flame here does not come out of a giraffe but crawls like a dragon's crests up a turned leg, along the front of which the drawers of the "anthropomorphic closet", as Dalí himself called it, follow one after the other. This motif was already present in the 1936 sculpture "Venus de Milo with boxes". "Only psychoanalysis can open those secret drawers," said Dalí, following Freud, who had used the metaphor of the chest of drawers to speak of the unconscious. In the Basel Museum painting, fire was linked to the Spanish Civil War and the premonition of World War II. In this monumental piece from 1980, on the other hand, it can be linked to eroticism and unsatisfied passion, in relation to the problems confessed by the artist of his sexual impotence. Likewise, the crutches (another basic prop of Dalí's imaginary) that support the muse's back suggest ambivalent meanings, since they are fragile anchors to reality and at the same time ways of accessing the subconscious. As for the technique, the bronze presents a high quality finish, appreciable in the modeling and textures. The dress adheres to the body emulating the Greek technique of wet cloths, giving sensuality to the curves and enigmatic power to the Dalinian allegory.

Dalí's monumental sculptures, including this fascinating "Woman Aflame", have been exhibited as public works in the most important cities of the world: Rome, London, Paris, Beijing, Singapore, Sydney and Hong Kong. Among the most prestigious venues are: South Bank (London); Place Vendôme (Paris); the Frankfurt Opera House (Germany); the Santa Croce Museum (Florence); Monte Carlo (Monaco); the MGM Grand in Macao and the Shanghai Art Museum (China).

Painter and sculptor, Salvador Dalí was one of the leading exponents of the surrealist movement. His work greatly influenced the course of surrealism during the 1920s and 1930s, being acclaimed as the creator of the paranoiac-critical method, an essential combination of the real and the imaginary. 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.