Salvador Dalí

SALVADOR DALÍ (Figueres, 1904–1989).
“La girafe saturnienne” (The Saturnian Giraffe), from the series “The Conquest of the Cosmos.”
Engraving on paper, E.A. edition.
Hand-colored.
Hand-signed in the lower right margin.
Measurements: 70 x 100 cm; 113 x 143 cm (frame).

“The Saturnian Giraffe” showcases much of the fantastical and visionary imagery that made Salvador Dalí one of the leading figures of international Surrealism. Dominating the composition is a monumental creature with an impossible anatomy, halfway between a horse and a giraffe, whose extremely stylized body and long, bony limbs seem to be moving through a desert landscape. Flames and thin lines surge from its back and extend into the sky, introducing an intense sense of movement and evoking Dalí’s famous motif of the flaming giraffe, a recurring element in his work since the 1930s. Surrounding it, biomorphic forms, cosmic-looking symbols, and an enigmatic figure complete a scene governed by irrational associations and metamorphosis—essential elements of the artist’s language.

A painter and sculptor, Salvador Dalí was one of the leading figures of the Surrealist movement. He held his first solo exhibition in 1925 at the Dalmau Galleries in Barcelona. In 1926, after being expelled from the San Fernando School of Fine Arts for indiscipline, he left for Paris. There he met the young Picasso and, four years later, joined the Surrealist movement. Dalí’s work during this period was based on Freud’s theories, which were championed by Breton: the depiction of dreamlike images and everyday objects in unexpected and surprising compositional forms. Some of the characteristics of his work from this time became hallmarks of his entire later body of work. He also absorbed influences from various artistic styles, ranging from classical academicism to the most groundbreaking avant-garde movements. His work had an enormous influence on the direction of Surrealism in the years that followed, and he was hailed as the creator of the paranoiac-critical method—an essential fusion of the real and the imaginary. Following his first solo exhibition in New York in 1934, his international reputation was definitively established. Most of his body of work is housed at the Dalí Theater-Museum in Figueras, followed by the collection at 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), and the Dalí Universe in London.