Vénus de Milo aux tiroirs by Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí
1904-1989 | Spanish

Vénus de Milo aux tiroirs
(Venus de Milo with drawers)

Signed "Salvador Dalí EA III/IV" (on base)
Bronze

One of the most famous sculptures of Salvador Dalí's renowned oeuvre, this monumental bronze entitled Vénus de Milo aux tiroirs is modeled after the iconic Venus de Milo sculpture at the Louvre. Dalí's version, however, incorporates a twist—fully functional drawers strategically placed across her figure. The concept, created in collaboration with his friend and fellow Surrealist icon Marcel Duchamp, stands as a seminal work of the modern age.

Dalí's fascination—or as he put it, his obsession—with Venus began at an early age. Modeling her figure was one of his first artistic endeavors. In the early 1940s, Dalí’s style shifted from Surrealism to a more traditional approach based on Classical and Renaissance art. As he famously stated, “To be a Surrealist forever is like spending your life painting nothing but eyes and noses.” Returning to his favorite figure, Dalí chose to represent her body as a series of drawers rather than as a solid figure. In doing so, Dalí contrasts the unapproachable with the approachable, the static with the dynamic and the classical with the modern. The result is an unexpected and fascinating fusion of reality and dreams.

This lifetime artist's proof was created by the artist before the eight editions were cast. The prototype of this sculpture was intended for Dalí's 1964 retrospective at the Seibu Museum in Tokyo, but it was delayed due to the complex casting needed. Standing over seven feet tall, this work is nearly twice the size of the original plaster version and exceeds the form and grandeur of the versions seen in major museum collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago.

Born in Catalonia in 1904, Dalí was formally educated in the fine arts in Madrid, particularly falling under the influence of the Impressionists and the Renaissance masters. He became associated with the Madrid avant-garde group Ultrae at a young age, though he eventually grew more acquainted with avant-garde movements such as Cubism, Dada and Futurism. By the late 1920s, his mature Surrealist style had already begun to emerge, and in 1929 he officially burst onto the avant-garde art scene with his Un chien Andalou, a short film he made with Spanish director Luis Buñuel. Today, he is remembered as one of the most legendary and significant contributors to Surrealism. His Persistence of Memory, with its melting clocks, is arguably the most recognizable painting of the movement. Two museums—one in St. Petersburg, Florida and another in Catalonia—are entirely devoted to his oeuvre. Other important works by the artist can be found in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among many others.

Conceived in 1964 and cast in 1988

86" high x 29 1/4" wide x 31 3/8" deep (218.44 x 74.30 x 79.69 cm)

Provenance:
Gattlen-Galerie, Lausanne
Private Collection, Europe
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York (acquired from the above in 1998)
M.S. Rau, New Orleans


Literature:,br> Robert and Nicolas Descharnes, Dalí: Le dur et le mou, Sculptures & Objects, Paris, 2003, no. 68, p. 32, 37 (another cast illustrated, p. 37)