Lounge
Why India is attracting rare Salvador Dali art
Summary
A comprehensive showcase of the artist’s rare etchings, prints, watercolours, tapestries comes to India for the first time
For much of her childhood, Christine Argillet’s family spent summers in Spain with the artist Salvador Dali. He used to affectionately call her “the little infante". Her father, Pierre, a freelance journalist, photographer and publisher, became one of the most important collectors of works by Futurists, Dadaists and Surrealists. Through his publishing company, Editions Pierre Argillet (later renamed Graphik Europa until it wound up in 2001), he encouraged European avant-garde artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Arp and Dali to create original prints. Later, he founded the Museum of Surrealism at the Chateau de Vaux-le-Penil in Melun, France.
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Of all of these artists, Pierre’s association with Dali was deepest. They met in France when, in the late 1950s, he commissioned the artist to work on a copper engraving for their first illustrated art book, titled Rois Mages or King Magi, with other surrealists such as Hans Bellmer, Jean Cocteau and Leonor Fini. Between the late 1950s and the mid-1970s, the two collaborated on a series of limited-edition intaglio prints, which are over 200 in number, and which will be shown at the exhibition. The resulting works are not just rare but also demonstrate just how skilled Dali was as an artist. For the record, he directly etched on a copper plate with a range of tools, including stylus, scissors, roulettes and lipsticks.
Not just a professional relationship was forged between the patron and the painter but also a profound bond of friendship till the artist’s death in 1989. Pierre died in 2001 but not before building his own collection of rare Dali works, some of them gifted by the artist.
Now, for the very first time, art enthusiasts in India will have an opportunity to view these works, besides watercolours, and tapestries from the Pierre Argillet Collection. The exhibition, Dali Comes to India, features around 100 works and is being presented by Bruno Art Gallery, which has spaces in Europe, Asia and the US.
Besides Dali’s rare artwork, the exhibition also features works by two other artists, Switzerland-based contemporary sculptor Dr. Gindi, and New York-based artist Yigal Ozeri. Dr. Gindi’s work in various mediums, including clay and bronze, challenges preconceived notions and ideas of the world, moving into the realm of alternative realities. Ozeri’s photo-realism art blurs the boundaries between photography and painting, inspired by India.
Dali Comes to India will first be exhibited in Delhi after which it will travel to Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and other cities.
Divided into sections, Dali Comes to India has been curated by Christine Argillet, now 70, to highlight some of the artist’s important series. The Songs of Maldoror, for instance, is a set of 50 prints, including eight reworked plates wherein Dali revisited his childhood traumas, the loss of his older brother and the demise of his mother when he was 16 years old.
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Then there’s the mythology section featuring 16 etchings which draw upon the symbolism of ancient Greek legends (a favourite subject of Dali’s). Especially interesting is the Secret Poems by Apollinaire, Faust, a series of 21 original etchings, illustrating Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s iconic tragic play. Also on display is the series, Don Juan, a set of hand-coloured original etchings based on the themes of seduction, love and death.
The exhibition will be accompanied by talks, discussions and films about the artist and his many talents as a filmmaker, theatre personality, literary figure and sculptor. What makes the exhibition especially significant is the insight that it offers into Dali’s printmaking techniques, which often used complex, laborious processes.
Those who have followed Dali’s whimsical and vibrant life, would know of his India connection as well. Back in the late 1960s, the artist designed a porcelain ashtray for Air India’s first-class passengers in his surrealistic style—with a shell-shaped centre and a serpent entwined around it. For his fee, the eccentric artist asked for an elephant, which the airline obliged, taking a calf from Bengaluru to Geneva before transporting it by truck to Cadaqués in Spain where Dali lived.
Eventually, the elephant was taken to Barcelona Zoo in 1971, with the artist finally admitting that the animal was too big to be taken to his olive groves or to travel around with.
This time, it’s only fitting to have Dali’s art travel to India.
At Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, 7-13 February, 10am-8pm (Monday to Sunday), after which it will move to Massarrat by Bruno Art Group, Delhi, till 16 March.
