The Dali Legacy by Christopher Heath Brown

Author:Christopher Heath Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Art History
Publisher: Apollo Publishers
Published: 2021-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

Fig. 64. Salvador Dalí, Endless Enigma, 1938

This only pushed Dalí to produce ever more provocative works that would establish him as the leading light of Surrealism, even if much of the Surrealist movement had by now disowned him. It also compelled him to write furiously, defending himself and his art. This led in 1942 to his first autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí.

His standing in the New York art world received a major boost when in November of 1941, the Museum of Modern Art hosted a major retrospective exhibition of Dalí, with some additional works by Miró. The exhibit subsequently traveled throughout the United States and did much to cement Dalí’s reputation in this country. In the introduction to the accompanying catalog, MoMA publicist Monroe Wheeler wrote that “we believe that Dalí is an artist of the greatest interest at the moment, and meaningful in this historic sense,” because “his imagination is not abnormal, at least no more so than that of a number of geniuses of painting in the past; no more so than the tormented psyche of today which is its basic theme.” And while Dalí’s conduct “may have been undignified,” Wheeler continues, “the greater part of his art is a matter of dead earnest, for us no less than for him.”

The subsequent essay by MoMA curator James Thrall Soby readily acknowledged the influence of Old Masters such as Johannes Vermeer, Diego Velázquez, Hieronymus Bosch, and the Spanish and Italian Baroque. In fact, Soby called Dalí’s interest in Vermeer’s art no less than “obsessive,” noting that “at various times in his career, [Dalí] declared that his ultimate ambition is to be able to paint like Vermeer.”

Notwithstanding the prestige of this retrospective, as well as the attention that the American press continued to lavish on Dalí, the sales of his paintings gradually declined after the United States entered World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As the wealthy patrons of New York turned to funding the war effort, the idea of investing in Surrealist art by a Spanish painter receded in importance. In response, Dalí plunged himself into writing, producing a novel, Hidden Faces, in 1944, while being forced to accept commissions to paint portraits of New York socialites. Needless to say, this further dimmed his standing in Modernist circles. Indeed, even the most passionate devotees of Dalí’s art would admit that the war years in exile were not the artist’s most fertile period, with only a few works of genuine merit. By contrast, Dalí produced some of his best designs for the stage during this time, including the sets for the 1941 ballet Labyrinth at the Metropolitan Opera, and the 1944 ballet The Mad Tristan, choreographed by Leonide Massine based on Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isold.

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