Salvador Dali and Walt Disney, Untitled from Destino, 1946-47, Limited edition serigraph, Printed 2006, Collection Dr. Lawrence and Holley Thompson. |
Salvador Dali, the Art and Freudian Psychology of Film |
Salvador Dali, Study for the Dream Sequence in "Spellbound", 1945, Oil on Panel, © Salvador Dalí. Fundación Gala-Salvador Dalí, DACS, 2007.
Salvador Dali, Study for the Dream Sequence in "Spellbound", 1945, Oil on Panel, 73 x 92 cm, Private Collection © Salvador Dalí. Fundación Gala-Salvador Dalí, DACS, 2007.
Salvador Dali on the set of the film Spellbound, © Source: BFI Image Rights of Salvador Dali reserved. Fundación Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2007. |
Tate Modern Dalí & Film focuses on the close relationship between the paintings and films of Salvador Dalí (1904–1989). Dali & Film is an exploration of the central role of cinema in Dalí’s art. Widely regarded as one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, Dali’s surrealist paintings are undoubtedly among the most recognisable works of art made in the last hundred years. His collaborations with Luis Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock, and Walt Disney also created some of the most memorable and influential scenes in avant-garde cinema. Dalí & Film is arranged chronologically and brings together more than one hundred works from collections around the world, including over 60 paintings. These will be seen alongside Dalí’s major film projects such as Un Chien andalou, L’Âge d’or (1929–30), Spellbound (1945) and Destino (1946), as well as associated photographs, drawings and manuscripts. The two films that he co-wrote with Luis Buñuel in 1929–30, Un Chien andalou and L’Âge d’or, are marked by Dalí’s vivid imagination and his engagement with the Freudian theories that energised Surrealism, especially the study of dreams and the unconscious. The films include haunting images such as the slicing of an eyeball with a razor and a hand infected with ants, and as this exhibition will reveal, images already explored in major paintings of that moment, such as Apparatus and Hand (1927) and Inaugural Goose Flesh (1928). It will also be possible to see how in subsequent paintings Dalí employed a new cinematic atmosphere, for example in Morning Ossification of the Cypress (1934). At times Dalí promoted film over painting, though he also declared "the best cinema is the kind that can be perceived with your eyes closed." Dalí imagined films throughout his life, producing poetic texts and sketches, scenarios and paintings. His dream-like vision proved ideal for Hollywood in the 1940s and on the cinema screen total immersion in Dalí’s imagination became possible for a mass audience. Dali seized the opportunity to work with Hitchcock on Spellbound and with Walt Disney’s studio on Destino, completed 2003. As this exhibition will show, the famous dream sequence for Hitchcock’s thriller brought to a grand scale the imagery of contemporary paintings such as Melancholy, Atomic, Uranic Idyll, 1945. Destino will also be shown, along with related drawings by Dalí for the first time in the UK. Dalí came from the first generation of artists for whom film was a formative influence and a creative outlet. In the era of silent movies distributed worldwide, he grew up admiring the inventiveness of the slap-stick Hollywood comedians, such as Harry Langdon and Buster Keaton. He saw this mass entertainment as anti-artistic in its disregard for the pretensions of high culture and this became a model for his own work. What distinguished Dalí was his cross-fertilisation of ideas across his enormously varied output, with images explored and transposed across all media. Dalí & Film is organised in collaboration with the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation in Figueres and with the support of the Spanish Tourist Office. It brings together a team of scholars who will contribute to the comprehensive catalogue: Dawn Ades (curator, Salvador Dalí: Centenary Exhibition), Montse Aguer (Director, Centre d’Estudis Dalinians, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation), Félix Fanès (curator, Dalí: Cultura de Masas) and Tate curator Matthew Gale (author of Dada and Surrealism). The exhibition will tour to Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Salvador Dalí Museum, St Petersburg, Florida in 2007 and 2008. |
Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, Un Chien andalou, film still, 1928. |
Jaime Miravilles and Salvador Dalí as the confused priests in Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali's, Un Chien andalou, film still, 1928. |
Salvador Dalí (Spain, 1904-1989), Design for a poster for Babaouo, c’est un film surréaliste, 1932, Mixed media on cardboard 27 x 37.1 cm, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, Spain, © 2008 Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. |
Salvador Dali and Film in the First Half of the 20th Century |
Salvador Dalí (Spain, 1904-1989), Ants, 1929, Gouache, ink and collage 11.5 x 16.4 cm, H. Amigorena Collection, Paris,
Salvador Dalí (Spain, 1904-1989), Illumined Pleasures, 1929, Oil and collage on board 23.8 x 34.7 cm, The Museum of
Salvador Dalí (Spain, 1904-1989), Remorse or Sphinx Embedded in the Sand, 1931, Oil on canvas 19.1 x 26.7 cm,
Salvador Dalí (Spain, 1904-1989), The First Days of Spring, 1929, Oil and collage on panel 50.2 x 65.1 cm, Salvador |
Museum of Modern Art Bringing together more than 120 paintings, photographs, drawings, and films by Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), this exhibition explores the role that cinema played in the artist's work. Both an inspiration and an outlet for experimentation, film was Dalí's passion, and cinematic vision became a model for his own work. Collaborations between Dalí and legendary filmmakers are displayed alongside his paintings and other works, illuminating the ways in which ideas, iconography, and pictorial strategies are shared and transformed across mediums. Among the provocative works on display are Un Chien andalou, a film made with Luis Buñuel; L'Age d'Or, another collaboration with Buñuel and one of the landmarks of Surrealist film; projects undertaken in Hollywood with Alfred Hitchcock — Spellbound (1945) — and Walt Disney — Destino (1946); and such important paintings as The First Days of Spring and Illumined Pleasures. In conjunction with the gallery exhibition, a series of screenings in the MoMA theaters presents the classic and avant-garde motion pictures Dalí treasured, films on which he collaborated, and examples of his legacy in contemporary cinema. The two films he co-wrote with Luis Buñuel in 1929-30, Un Chien andalou and L’Âge d’or, are marked by Dalí’s vivid imagination and his engagement with the Freudian theories that energised Surrealism, especially the study of dreams and the unconscious. The films include haunting images such as the slicing of an eyeball with a razor and a hand infected with ants, and as this exhibition will reveal, images already explored in major paintings of that moment, such as Apparatus and Hand (1927) and Inaugural Goose Flesh (1928). It will also be possible to see how in subsequent paintings Dalí employed a new cinematic atmosphere, for example in Morning Ossification of the Cypress (1934). At times Dalí promoted film over painting, though he also declared "the best cinema is the kind that can be perceived with your eyes closed." Dalí imagined films throughout his life, producing poetic texts and sketches, scenarios and paintings. His dream-like vision proved ideal for Hollywood in the 1940s and on the cinema screen total immersion in Dalí’s imagination became possible for a mass audience. Dali seized the opportunity to work with Hitchcock on Spellbound and with Walt Disney’s studio on Destino, completed 2003. As this exhibition will show, the famous dream sequence for Hitchcock’s thriller brought to a grand scale the imagery of contemporary paintings such as Melancholy, Atomic, Uranic Idyll, 1945. Dalí came from the first generation of artists for whom film was a formative influence and a creative outlet. In the era of silent movies distributed worldwide, he grew up admiring the inventiveness of the slap-stick Hollywood comedians, such as Harry Langdon and Buster Keaton. He saw this mass entertainment as anti-artistic in its disregard for the pretensions of high culture and this became a model for his own work. What distinguished Dalí was his cross-fertilisation of ideas across his enormously varied output, with images explored and transposed across all media. Exhibition organised by Tate Modern in collaboration with the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation in Figueres.
Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904-1989). Madrid Suburb, ca. 1922-23. Wash on paper. 20.8 x 15 cm (8 3/16 x 5 7/8 in.). Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, Spain.© 2008 Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. |
Salvador Dalí (Spain, 1904-1989), Moment of Transition, 1934, Oil on canvas 54 x 65 cm, Collection Viktor and Marianne Langen, © 2008 Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. |
