IMAGE
IMAGE

Artwork Details

Title
Average Atmospherocephalic Bureaucrat in the Act of Milking a Cranial Harp

Maker
Salvador Dalí
Date Made
1933
Materials
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Image: 8 3/4 in x 6 1/2 in
Accession ID Number
2007.5
Credit Line
Collection of The Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL (USA); Gift of A. Reynolds & Eleanor Morse 2007.5
Location
ON VIEW
Copyright
In the USA ©Salvador Dalí Museum, Inc. St. Petersburg, FL 2023 / Worldwide rights ©Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2023.

Supplemental material

Description

This exquisite miniature is an attack on Dalí’s father who is presented in the strange act of “milking” the skull-harp. Both the distorted, anamorphic skull and the crutch are Dalínian symbols of impotency used repeatedly in his early surrealist works. Their meaning is conveyed through the skull’s flaccid state, requiring a crutch for support. The enigmatic bureaucrat in his nightshirt and gartered socks refers to Dalí’s estranged father, who is implicated in this humiliating act of “milking.”

Distorted skulls appear throughout this period of Dalí’s work such as "Profanation of the Host," "Fantasies Diurnes," "Untitled - Persistence of Fair Weather" and "Average Atmospherocephalic Bureaucrat in the Act of Milking a Cranial Harp" (all The Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL). Dalí claims that the elongated appendage forms and distorted skulls were conceived upon hearing a lion roar at the zoo in Barcelona, representing something like the “cavernous roarings of form.”

Exhibition History:
1933, New York, Julien Levy Gallery, “Exhibition of Paintings by Salvador Dalí”
1933, Paris, Pierre Colle, “Exposition Surréaliste”
1936, London, Alex, Reid & Lefevre, Ltd., “Salvador Dali”
1939, San Francisco, San Francisco Golden Gate International Exposition, “Contemporary Art of 79 Countries”
1941, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, “Salvador Dalí”
1942, Indianapolis, The John Herron Art Institute (Indianapolis Museum of Art), [Exhibition of paintings by Salvador Dali]
1942, San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, “An Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Dalí”
1943, Williamsburg, College of William and Mary, “An Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Dalí”
1943, Utica, Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, “An Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Dalí”
1943, Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, “An Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Dalí”
1943, Omaha, Josly Art Museum, “An Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Dalí”
1946, Boston, The Institute of Modern Art, “Four Spaniards : Dali, Gris, Miro, Picasso”
1947, Cleveland, Ohio, The Cleveland Museum of Art, “Salvador Dalí, an exhibition”
1953, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, “Fiesta Exhibition Picasso, Gris, Miro, Dali”
1960, New York, The Finch College Art Gallery and Museum, “Paintings, drawings and watercolors of Salvador Dali”
1965, New York, Gallery of Modern Art, “Salvador Dalí, 1910-1965”
1997, Ft. Lauderdale, Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art, "Treasures from the Salvador Dalí Museum"
2000, St. Petersburg, Florida, The Salvador Dalí Museum, "Masterpieces of Surrealism"
2000, St. Petersburg, Florida, The Salvador Dalí Museum, “James Rosenquist: Paintings James Rosenquist: Selects DALI”
2005, Albuquerque, The Alburquerque Museum, “Picasso to Plensa : a century of art from Spain = De Picasso a Plensa : un siglo de arte de España”
2006, St. Petersburg, Salvador Dalí Museum, "Picasso to Plensa : a Century of Art from Spain"
2007, St. Petersburg, Fl., Salvador Dalí Museum, “Dalí and the Spanish Baroque”
2012, Paris, Centre Pompidou, “Dali: Retrospective”
2013, Madrid, Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, “Dalí. Todas las sugestiones poéticas y todas las posibilidades plásticas”

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