Salvador Dali - The Horseman of the Apocalypse (oil on canvas, 1970)

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Here is another portrait of Sir James Dunn by Dali - perhaps better known than the previous one.

Salvador Dali - Portrait of Sir James Dunn (oil on canvas, 1958)

Sir James was one of Dali's few real friends. The affluence comes through in this image but also there is a soft feeling of love and familiarity.

A fine painting, understated which makes it work.

Roger

Dali is something else. Even in this painting of Dunn, there is a crazy looking cloud, that looks to me like a dog standing on it's front legs with a toy in it's mouth. I think he had a funny sense of humor and used it all the time. The picture of Mrs Dunn is the most perfect of all his paintings. Perfect meaning, nothing odd looking in the painting, like most of his paintings are some are just weird, kind of eerie at times.

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Dear friends,

I have long felt indebted with you for want of a new great artist to feature. And put it down to irresolution or mere indolence, this time I have opted for a very, very special guest: Salvador Dali, the Spanish surrealist painter.

To me, Dali (1904 - 1989) would seem to ever have been alive. No wonder, he used to be everyday news for his unconventional behavior. At André Breton’s claim that he must be barred from the Surrealist movement (which in fact he was) for his deplorable attitudes, he retorted: "The only difference between me and the Surrealists is I am a Surrealist." Wow.

Yet if I had not much ado in selecting him, I did have in choosing one of his lesser-known paintings (but one I have always loved without reservations) to feature alongside with him: you may see it below: The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1958-59).

As is usual with our featured artists, Dali was prodigiously prolific. In effect, he seems to always have painted compulsively. But take it easy, please; at this point I will only mention a few other master works by him: The Persistence of Memory (1931), his Christ of Sain John of the Cross (1951), his Leda Atomica (1949), etc. Other great paintings will probably be appearing in due course along this thread.

Thank you,

Luis Miguel Goitizolo

GREAT MASTERS OF PAINTING -
SALVADOR DALI

(Click on image to enlarge)

The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1)
By Salvador Dali
(oil on canvas, 1958 - 1959)

(born May 11, 1904, Figueras, Spain
died Jan. 23, 1989, Figueras)

Technical data (2)

Technique: oil

Material: canvas

Dimensions: 410 x 310 cm

Gallery: Salvador Dali Museum,
St. Petersburg, FL, USA

Profile (3)

Salvador Dalí, in full Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí y Domenech (born May 11, 1904, Figueras, Spain—died Jan. 23, 1989, Figueras), Spanish Surrealist painter and printmaker, influential for his explorations of subconscious imagery.

As an art student in Madrid and Barcelona, Dalí assimilated a vast number of artistic styles and displayed unusual technical facility as a painter. It was not until the late 1920s, however, that two events brought about the development of his mature artistic style: his discovery of Sigmund Freud’s writings on the erotic significance of subconscious imagery, and his affiliation with the Paris Surrealists, a group of artists and writers who sought to establish the “greater reality” of man’s subconscious over his reason. To bring up images from his subconscious mind, Dalí began to induce hallucinatory states in himself by a process he described as “paranoiac critical.”

Once Dalí hit on this method, his painting style matured with extraordinary rapidity, and from 1929 to 1937 he produced the paintings which made him the world’s best-known Surrealist artist. He depicted a dream world in which commonplace objects are juxtaposed, deformed, or otherwise metamorphosed in a bizarre and irrational fashion. Dalí portrayed these objects in meticulous, almost painfully realistic detail and usually placed them within bleak, sunlit landscapes that were reminiscent of his Catalonian homeland. Perhaps the most famous of these enigmatic images is “The Persistence of Memory” (1931), in which limp, melting watches rest in an eerily calm landscape. With the Spanish director Luis Buñuel, Dalí also made two Surrealistic films—Un Chien andalou (1928; An Andalusian Dog) and L’Âge d’or (1930; The Golden Age)—that are similarly filled with grotesque but highly suggestive images.

In the late 1930s Dalí switched to painting in a more academic style under the influence of the Renaissance painter Raphael, and as a consequence he was expelled from the Surrealist movement. Thereafter he spent much of his time designing theatre sets, interiors of fashionable shops, and jewelry, as well as exhibiting his genius for flamboyant self-promotional stunts in the United States, where he lived from 1940 to 1955. In the period from 1950 to 1970 Dalí painted many works with religious themes, though he continued to explore erotic subjects, to represent childhood memories, and to use themes centring on his wife, Gala. Notwithstanding their technical accomplishments, these later paintings are not as highly regarded as the artist’s earlier works. The most interesting and revealing of Dalí’s books is The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942–44).

(1) This image is a courtesy of WikiPaintings.

(2) Ibid.

(3) Encyclopedia Britannica. Other excelent biographies of Salvador Dali may be found at Wikipedia and The Artchive (click "Dali" on the left menu).

Dear Miguel,

Couldn't resist to stop by to thank you for this thread.
Today I am very limited by time, this is just to enable future notifications to my inbox :).
Will be back ASAP.

WOW - can't wait to spend some time with one of my greatest lovers and source of inspiration, S. Dali.

Hug you my friend,

Branka

Welcome dear Branka,

And thank you for your kind feedback. I hope you come back soon but at any rate, I will be on the lookout for your always stimulating contributions.

Hugs too,

Miguel