ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Dali Museum will present more than 100 works on paper from the museum’s vault in Where Ideas Come From: Dali’s Drawings from May 27 through Oct. 22. Showcasing the artist’s utilization of various media, including pencil, pen, charcoal, watercolor and gouache, Dali’s Drawings will highlight Dali’s creative process throughout the many phases of his career. More than half of the artworks will be on view for the first time in 35 years and will rarely be displayed again due to their fragile nature. Through the support of donations from the community, the majority of the works featured in the exhibition were recently conserved — for the first time — in alignment with the Dali’s mission to care for and share Dali’s work and legacy.
“Drawing is perhaps the most direct way to bring what is in the mind through the hand and into the world — a critical part of the creative process and one that Dali was committed to throughout his life,” said Hank Hine, the museum’s executive director. “We look forward to sharing with visitors the insights these works provide into his practice and imagination.”
Organized chronologically from 1916 to 1974, the works are delineated into four distinct periods of the artist’s life: Early Period; Surrealism; Nuclear Mysticism, Classicism and Religion; and Late Period. The thematic groupings will feature studies for major oil paintings, portraits, experimental drawing techniques and commercial projects, including film.
Works from Dali’s Early Period, including student sketches, book illustrations, poster designs and provocative self-portraits, demonstrate his natural mastery of drawing and painting techniques. These works trace the artist’s transition from Classicism to Cubism, and ultimately anti-art.
The Surrealism section will highlight illuminating studies for such works as The Weaning of Furniture Nutrition (1934) and Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy (The Three Ages) (1940), illustrations for Le Chants de Maldoror (1940) and examples of Dali’s experimentation with various surrealist drawing techniques. This section also includes two of the Dali’s new acquisitions: Drawing for “Bacchanale”, Ludwig II of Bavaria (1939), a ballet-inspired portrait of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, and Untitled (Paranoiac Face) (circa 1935), a frontispiece — the illustration facing the title page of a book — dedicated to Paul Eluard from Dali’s book Conquest of the Irrational.
Some of Dali’s most recognizable work will be on view in the section focused on his Nuclear Mysticism, Classicism and Religion period. Illustrations for works by the Italian poet, writer and philosopher Dante Alighieri and the ballet Tres Picos will appear alongside familiar motifs of exploding watches, flies, disintegrating figures and religious-tinged images of dissolving angels. Transformations and studies for The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955) and Christ of St. John of the Cross (1951) will round out this section.
The final section, Late Period, will include diverse selections with small studies of The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1969-1970) and Galacidalacidesoxiribunucleicacid (Homage to Crick and Watson) (1962-1963). Dali’s Drawings will conclude with the 1974 Iceberg Sketch, a self-portrait Dali gifted to the founders of the Dali Museum, A. Reynolds and Eleanor Morse.
Visit the website of the Dali Museum and see its dedicated page for Where Ideas Come From: Dali’s Drawings.