Lot 17*,AR
SALVADOR DALÍ(1904-1989)Rideau-chevelure semi-humain séparé par une fermeture éclair (Hairy half-human curtains separated by a zipper)
Amended
20 April 2023, 16:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £101,100 inc. premium
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SALVADOR DALÍ (1904-1989)
Rideau-chevelure semi-humain séparé par une fermeture éclair (Hairy half-human curtains separated by a zipper)
signed 'Dalí' (lower right)
pen and India ink on card
27 x 22cm (10 5/8 x 8 11/16in).
Executed circa 1937
signed 'Dalí' (lower right)
pen and India ink on card
27 x 22cm (10 5/8 x 8 11/16in).
Executed circa 1937
Footnotes
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Nicolas Descharnes.
Provenance
John U. Sturdevant Collection, Palm Beach (acquired by 1971).
Daniel Varenne Collection, Switzerland.
Thence by descent to the present owner.
Exhibited
Baden-Baden, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Dalí, Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Objekte, Schmuck, 29 January – 18 April 1971, no. 139.
Literature
Houston Chronicle, 13 February 1937 (detail illustrated p. 9 with the caption: 'A Pair of "Hairy, Half-Human Curtains Separated by a Zipper" Will Be a Feature of One of M. Dalí's Rooms Fifty Years From Now. In the Doorways of an Apartment These Curtains Will Be Hung to Warn a Person of the Fate That May Await in the Next Room. They Will Quiver and Shake at the Sign of Danger, and Caress the Oncomer If Joy or Good Fortune Waits Within'), later reproduced in Detroit Free Press, 18 February 1937; Florence (S.C.) News, 21 February 1937; Birmingham (ALA.) News-Age, 21 February 1937; Tulsa (OKLA.) Tribune, 21 February 1937).
Exh. cat., Dalí, Paris, 2012 (illustrated p. 252).
Rideau-chevelure semi-humain séparé par une fermeture éclair presents a rectangular doorway, entrance through which must be made through a zippered curtain of flowing hair. The hard vertical and horizontal ink strokes forming the flooring, skirting and architrave juxtapose sharply with the organic waves of hair which drape gently to the floor.
Drawn circa 1937, the work is closely related to Dalí's magnificent oil and collage work, Singularitats of 1935-1936 – which was featured on the front cover of the catalogue for the 2022 exhibition Salvador Dalí: Myth and Singularity at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens. The finished composition picks out features in blood-red pigment against an inky black background and shows the curtained doorway of the present work to the left of an eerie landscape. Here, the door is situated on a small box-like red building, a certain faded elegance recalled by a triangular pediment and cracking exterior. The zip and curtains of hair conjure obvious sexual overtones, as does the intrigue of what is to be found within the box, guarded by a feathery silhouette to the right, and a flamboyant, goddess-like woman to the foreground.
The concept of the door as a sexual gateway was revisited by Dalí in 1939 when he constructed the Dream of Venus installation at the New York World's Fair, transforming the pavilion into an erotic funhouse which was entered through a monumental pair of gartered legs. Dalí explored the use of different materials in the 1930s to enhance the erotic associations of an artwork, believing, in Dawn Ades' opinion, that 'the erotic can find expression in a variety of ways, most obviously via the gaze and the touch. The object as incarnation of desire is realised in, for instance, the fur pom-poms on Dalí's Venus de Milo with Drawers' (D. Ades, 'Eroticism', in Dalí/Duchamp, exh. cat., London, 2017, p. 108). Created in 1936, Dalí's version of the famous Venus de Milo was provocatively adorned with tactile mink tufts to her forehead, bare breasts, stomach, and uncovered knee.
It is thought that the artist was a virgin when he first met his wife at the age of 25 ('until Gala entered his life, Dalí was clearly afraid of young women, with the fear of fascination' – R. Descharnes & G. Néret, Salvador Dalí, The Paintings, Vol. I, 1904-1946, Cologne, 2007, p. 70) and was rumoured to prefer masturbation or voyeurism more than the act of consummation. A fixation with sexuality played out across his oeuvre, noticeably in the late 1920s-1930s, a period which spawned controversial works such as Le grand masturbateur (1929) – Dalí's 'main obsession at that time can best be termed desire' (ibid, p. 145).
The Mae West Room in the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres (opened in 1974) revisits the idea of hair as curtain. Dalí constructed an apartment with the help of designer Òscar Tusequets, which, when viewed through a reducing lens, conjured the face of the Hollywood film star. Her out-scale hair was lavishly arranged to form a grand theatre-like curtain, framing the tableau formed by the furniture and paintings beyond. The concept came from the artist's collage of 1934-1935, Le visage de Mae West qui peut être utilisé comme appartement surréaliste, whose curtain-like hair and red tones echo elements of Singularitats.
The present work was executed in the midst of Dalí's most successful years, following his marriage to Gala in 1934 and his celebrated debut in New York. During his trip to the US in 1934, Dalí held six solo exhibitions and delivered a lecture at MoMA. He embraced his fame, going out of his way to court publicity: 'Dalí liked going into drugstores with an immense loaf tucked under his arm, ordering fried eggs, and then eating them with a small piece of bread cut off the loaf – to the great amusement of anyone who happened to be there at the time [...] Before they departed, Caresse Crosby threw a Dream Ball in Dalí's honour. The Americans vied to out-Dalí each other. Dalí confessed that even he (who was so rarely impressed by anything) was astounded by the riotousness of the ball at the 'Coq Rouge'' (op. cit, p. 235).
Despite his individual success, Dalí maintained a dialogue with his fellow Surrealists, most notably René Magritte, whose 1966 sketch Le Viol ('The Rape') undoubtedly echoes the present work. The composition by the same name to which it refers was painted in 1934, preceding Dalí's Singularitats, and depicts a female face formed by her torso, a triangle of pubic hair taking the place of her mouth, the whole framed by her auburn hair. When the painting was exhibited at the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles in the year of its execution, it was deliberately excluded from the exhibition catalogue and displayed behind a velvet curtain, in an area reserved for adults only. The portrait is believed to allude to the artist's mother's tragic suicide by drowning when Magritte was just fourteen – she was discovered with her face veiled by her gown, her naked body exposed.
The peep-show nature of the presentation of Le Viol in 1934 leads us to question what is behind the curtain in the present work, shown to be the portal to a red booth in the larger composition. Eroticism was intrinsically linked with danger and uncertainty for Dalí, as the enticement of sexual promise in Singularitats is threatened by the eerie setting, filled with unknown and inexplicable objects. An animate object is draped in red cloth to the lower left, while the Dalínian clock melts to the lower right, and the faceless female figure morphs into foliage. Choosing to focus solely on the curtained doorway in Rideau-chevelure semi-humain séparé par une fermeture éclair, Dalí invites the viewer to step through to an alluring unknown.
Saleroom notices
Please note that the provenance should read:
John U. Sturdevant Collection, Palm Beach (acquired by 1971).
Daniel Varenne Collection, Switzerland.
Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain Collection, Switzerland.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2008.