Arno Breker & Salvador Dali

ARNO BREKER (Elberfeld, Germany, 1900-Düsseldorf, Germany, 1991) & SALVADOR DALÍ I DOMÈNECH (Figueres, Girona, 1904-1989).
"Dali Vision-The Eye of Wisdom" from the series "Dalí-Morphosis", 1974-1975.
Polychrome bronze. Marble base.
Signed and dated by Arno Breker.
With stamp of the Venturi Arte Bologna Foundry.
Exhibitions:
- "Homage to Salvador Dalí", Schloss Nörvenich, Germany, inaugurated by Philip VI, at that time prince, 1991.
- Centenary of the birth of Salvador Dalí", 2004, under the patronage of HM Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia of Spain.
Measurements: 21 x 15.5 x 15 cm (without base); 32 cm (height with base).

It was 1974 when Salvador Dalí invited Arno Breker, a German sculptor for whom he felt great admiration, to the inauguration of the Dalí Museum in Figueras, Spain. There the German exhibited a marble bust of Jean Cocteau that Dalí himself had requested, narrating the experience as "After his speech, he himself led the guests through the museum. And when we reached the room where the bust was, he asked, "Where is Breker?" They looked for me and I approached him. Dalí's conversation turned to me. In front of the audience he hugged me tightly and thanked me for having presented the Cocteau bust to the museum. So from one moment to the next they took the bust away from me. But Dalí did it with such charm that I couldn't say no." (excerpt from the book Schriften by Arno Breker). The following year, and following the harmony between the two artists during the meeting, they began a collaboration that culminated in the realization of 10 unique and unrepeatable sculptures. For this purpose, Breker made exceptional portraits of the Figueras artist, which were later intervened by Dalí himself, giving them his unmistakable surrealist touch.

Painter and sculptor, Salvador Dalí was one of the greatest 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. 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.

Arno Breker entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf in 1920, and in 1927 he moved to Paris, where he became familiar with the works of Rodin and Charles Despiau. In 1931 he went to Rome. During a trip to Florence he saw Michelangelo's David, which meant for him "like a cosmic call, like an order, pure occultism" to dedicate himself to a realistic and harmonious sculpture. In 1936, on the occasion of the Berlin Olympic Games, he received the commission for three statues for the stadium. In 1938, he received the commission for two monumental statues for the entrance of the New Chancellery, which would mark the destiny of his work. A week later, when he presented the project for The Torchbearer and The Swordbearer, Adolf Hitler was won over by the designs, which marked the beginning of the most fruitful period of Breker's career as he became the official sculptor of the regime. Until 1945, he sculpted for squares and avenues in the capital of the Third Reich. However, during World War II, not even a quarter of his works were spared from enemy bombardment and vandalism by the invading troops. After World War II, Breker continued to devote himself to both architecture and sculpture, as shown by the building in Cologne for an insurance company in 1955, or the equestrian statue of Mohammed V, King of Morocco. Some well-known faces portrayed by this sculptor are Salvador Dalí, Ezra Pound, the athlete Ulrike Meyfarth and Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza.