A fabulous limited edition bronze sculpture depicting a female figurine perched atop an oversized seashell. As homage to Marcel Duchamp, the piece was created in 1973 and the signature of the artist is impressed in the bronze; it is also engraved 9/300 in the bronze.
LITERATURE:
This artwork is referenced in the Catalogue Raisonné "DALI, Sculptures & Objets, The Hard and the Soft" by Robert and Nicolas Descharnes, editions Eccart 2004. Page 162 Illustration #412.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Height: 22.5 cm
Width: 12 cm
Depth: 13 cm
Circa: 1973
Condition: Excellent Original Condition
Materials: Bronze
Book Ref: Dali - Sculpture & Objects - by Descharnes
Page No: 162
SKU: 9243
ABOUT
Nude Ascending The Staircase
This bronze is Dali's ironical answer to the celebrated painting "Nude descending a Staircase", painted in 1911 by the master of the Dada movement and father of surrealism, Marcel Duchamp. In 1912, Duchamp exhibited "Nude descending a Staircase Numero 2" at the Dalmau gallery in Barcelona. Perhaps Dali saw it there, or maybe he read what the critics had to say about it in the papers. Dali could not have been more pleased to render homage to his friend - and greatly amused himself by creating the realistic body of his woman ascending with large steps by the spirals of a shell.
Salvador Dali
Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech (* May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain; † January 23, 1989) spent his life exploring the limits of the human spirit. Which was sometimes reflected on the screen in bizarre dream worlds.
As one of the main representatives of Surrealism, Salvador Dalí is one of the most famous painters of the 20th century. But the universal genius was also a gifted graphic artist, writer, stage designer and sculptor. The year was 1956, when Dalí completed a sculpture that expressed all his creative power. Dalí was probably inspired by another important artist - Albrecht Dürer. As is known, in 1515 he had made a woodcut depicting a rhinoceros only on the basis of a description, since he had never seen the unusual animal himself.
Although coming from two different eras, Dalí and Dürer would probably have gotten along well. After all, both artists went into great detail with their works. However, Dalí would not be Dalí if he had not added a crown to his work, with a wink and a slight twirl to the famous beard. In Dalí's case, however, the crown mutates into a sea urchin. By arranging the rhinoceros with a sea urchin, Dalí succeeds in elevating the object of representation to a new level. Salvador Dalí, who liked to describe his associative and dream worlds as a paranoiac-critical method, thus alienates Dürer's depiction of the animal in a surrealistic way. Dalí's rhinoceros sculpture was created in 1954 as a large-format unique piece. The artist never realized an edition of this sculpture throughout his life. Dalí would certainly have been pleased that the original has been on display in the Marbella marina since 2004.
For those who would like to have the famous rhinoceros a few sizes smaller in their home showcase, there is an opportunity. Robert Descharnes, owner of the exploitation rights to Dalí's sculptures, authorized the casting of the small sculpture "Rhinocéros" in 1997, which is aimed at collectors. In the famous art foundry Airaindor-Valsuani, about 30 kilometers south of Paris, these and other bronze sculptures by Dalí. The unique piece in the marina of Marbella, however, in its monumental size exerts its own charm on the viewer. Quite in the spirit of the eccentric artist.
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