Salvador Dalí Building and Garden Elements

Three polished lacquered cast bronze pieces joined together. During the ‘thirties in Paris, Salvador Dalí surrounded himself with a circle of friends involved in the application of art to varied disciplines, above and beyond the study of pure pictorial art. Jean-Michel Frank, a furniture maker and decorator of recognized prestige in the Paris of those years, was on very good terms with Dalí and together they worked on several ideas. The Bracelli lamp which we present here is a classic design after Jean-Michel’s manner of designing and working, adopted by Dalí for his house at Portlligat. Amongst Dalí ’s specific furnishing projects, and constituting another for his curriculum vitae as a designer, may be counted the garden furnishings for his Portlligat house, the complete architecture of the Night Club (garotte-shaped) for the Hotel Presidente in Acapulco (1957) and another project for a bar in California in the ‘forties. As shown by the small selection now produced and included in this catalogue, Dalí ’s work was not restrictes to the traditional furnishing elements, but included tap fittings, handles, door-pulls, printed fabrics and objets of indeterminate use. In the 1990s a group of experts, led by Oscar Tusquets, set themselves the task of turning the furniture Dalí had drawn for Jean-Michel Frank into reality. Amongst these items were the Leda chair...

Dalí’s creativity and fascination with the human body takes the form of a sunbed, intimately created and exquisitely designed. Dalí’s original Portlligat was made in 1962 from olive tree wood for him and his wife Gala’s home in Costa Brava, Spain. This reproduction is available in Iroko wood which is resistant to changes in heat and moisture content, and optional upholstery for outdoor use. It resembles a body: it has a head, torso, ribs, arms, hands, legs and feet. The visible grain and unified structure present a strong and meaningfully arranged, figurative piece. Salvador Dalí was born in Figueres, Catalonia, in 1904. He began drawing when he was 12 and was formally educated in fine arts at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid. He experimented with Cubism, was attracted to Dada and Futurism, and was influenced by the great masters of the Renaissance. In 1929, he joined the Surrealist movement and became its most successful proponent. His work shocked and excited society. Diverse things were merged into an explicit rawness, one with unusual meanings that, when combined, made irreality concrete. In the Paris of the 1930s, Dalí surrounded himself with a circle of friends working in varied disciplines beyond the study of purely pictorial art. He collaborated with designers like JeanMichel Frank to...