4/18/2009
Salvador Dali: Liquid Desire
The first comprehensive retrospective of the work of Salvador Dalí ever to be staged in Australia is coming exclusively to the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) as the sixth exhibition in the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series. Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire will bring together more than 200 stunning works by in all media including painting, drawing, watercolour, etchings, sculpture, fashion, jewellery, cinema and photography.
The exhibition will be drawn from the two largest collections of Salvador Dalí in the world, the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí in Figueres, Spain and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, Florida. Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire will explore the brilliance of Dalí through chronological sections with visitors first encountering the artist as an accomplished young Impressionist painter with what is widely considered to be his first masterpiece, Self-Portrait with Raphaelesque Neck.
The exhibition will then move through Dalí’s experimentation with Cubism, Abstraction, Neoclassicism and New Objectivity during his student years and his leadership of the Surrealist movement in Paris during the 1930s.
Dr Ted Gott, Senior Curator International Art, said Dalí’s artistic imagination was constantly fed by the ruggedly romantic landscapes of his native Catalonia. “These stunning landscapes, infused with his unique imagination, informed the classic Surrealist paintings with which Dalí astonished the art world in the early 1930s and for which he is so well known for today. A strong group of paintings from the period of Dalí’s involvement with Surrealism in Paris will be included in the exhibition,” said Dr. Gott.
Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire will also include the most significant Dalí work held in an Australian collection, the Lobster Telephone from the National Gallery of Australia, arguably one of the most famous sculptures of the twentieth century. “One of the great innovators in the history of 20th century art, Dalí’s extraordinary artistic output extends far beyond Surrealism. He was a true genius in every respect; a giant on the international stage whose art has influenced more than just his own generation. There was nothing the man could not do,” said Dr Gott. Tweet this!
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