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Shades of Night Descending

Artwork Details

Title
Shades of Night Descending

Maker
Salvador Dalí
Date Made
1931
Place Made
Spain
Materials
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Image: 24 in x 19 3/4 in
Accession ID Number
2007.22
Credit Line
Collection of The Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL (USA); Gift of A. Reynolds & Eleanor Morse 2007.22
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 painting belongs to a series of “nostalgic landscapes” Dalí painted in 1931. The paint captures the melancholy of Dalí’s native Empordá in an unsettling scene that reflect the memories of landscapes of his youth. The time of day is dusk and mysterious shadows spread across the open plain. The geological formations reveal two real sources, the rocks of Cap Norfeo, near Cadaqués, and the expansive Beach of Rosas. Here is where the formidable rocks of Norfeo, usually dips precipitously to the sea now absent from the scene. The lichen covering the rocks have the same golden, iridescences that appears in the painting. The rounded stone in the center of painting is another reference to Dalí’s environment, the source, of which, is the Playa Confitera, or “Candy Beach.”

The early evening light captures the contours of the landscape with mysterious shadows spreading across the plain. On the right is a shrouded figure emerging from the silhouette of the cliff. This phantom type figure is wrapped in a clinging white sheet revealing the contours of a glass, and a woman’s high-heeled shoe beneath the surface, both of which can suggest the quintessential object of desire.

Exhibition History:
1933, Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, "A Century of Progress" [World's Fair Exhibition, “Chicago World's Fair Exhibition”]
1941, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, “Salvador Dalí”
1947, Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, “Print Club of Cleveland-Salvador Dalí: An Exhibition”
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"
1998, Rio de Janeiro, Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, "Dali Monumental"
1998, Sao Paulo, Museum of Art, "Dali Monumental"
1999, Fukuoka, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, "Dali Exhibition 1999"
1999, Shinjuku(Tokyo), Mitsukoshi Museum of Art, "Dali Exhibition 1999"
2000, St. Petersburg, Florida, The Salvador Dalí Museum, "Masterpieces of Surrealism"
2000, Daytona, Daytona Museum of Arts and Sciences, “Dali Over Daytona”
2004, Venezia, Palazzo Grassi, "Dali Retrospective"
2005, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, "Dali Retrospective"
2006, Tokyo, Ueno Royal Museum, “Dalí Centennial Retrospective”
2007, London, The Tate Modern, “Dali and Film”
2008, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “Dali and Film”
2008, New York, Museum of Modern Art, “Dali and Film”
2009, Barcelona, “75th Anniversary for National Art Museum of Catalonia”
2016, Kyoto, Kyoto Municipal Museum, “Salvador Dalí”
2016, Tokyo, National Art Center, “Salvador Dalí”
2018, St. Petersburg, The Dalí Museum, "Magritte and Dalí"
2019, Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, "Magritte and Dalí"
2021, Seoul, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, "Salvador Dali: Imagination and Reality"
2022, St. Petersburg, The Dalí Museum, "The Shape of Dreams"

Keywords