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IMAGE
IMAGE

Artwork Details

Title
The Font

Maker
Salvador Dalí
Date Made
1930
Materials
Oil and collage on wood panel
Dimensions
Image: 26 in x 16 1/4 in
Accession ID Number
1998.9
Credit Line
Collection of The Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL (USA); Gift of A. Reynolds & Eleanor Morse 1998.9
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

"The Font" presents symbols found in other works of this period such as grasshoppers, lions, ants, a blasphemed Eucharist above the altar, as well as unique ones including keys, screws, columns and ruins, and a figure hiding his face in shame. Though the composition is divided across the canvas in small clusters, its focus is the double blasphemy of the baptismal font and the altar.

Several grasshoppers, terrifying images to Dalí, appear in the work. One is attached to a stone-like, smoky protrusion stemming from the shoulders of the kneeling figure in the foreground. After a few graceful twists and turns, this growth takes on the form of a bird’s head the tip of which metamorphoses into moths. The lion, another terrifying figure to Dalí, represents his father.

The enigmatic object in the lower right of this painting is reminiscent of both the chimney openings on the roof of Gaudí’s Barcelona apartment building Casa Mila, as well as the wind-carved rocks of Cap de Creus. The keys suggest the Freudian notion of unlocking and exploring the secrets of the mind, which along with the screws, are fetish objects and sexual symbols. The ruins of Ampurias near Dalí’s home are depicted by the three distorted columns. The ruins create a dramatic atmospheric effect mirroring the ideas expressed in Symbolism, a movement of the 19th century originating in France, which emphasized mood as the most important element of a composition. Ants swarm at the mouth of the fountain head with the woman’s face. This fountain was inspired by an Art Nouveau pin box that Dalí had in his home in Port Lligat.

Exhibition History:
1933, New York, Julien Levy Gallery, “Exhibition of Paintings by Salvador Dalí”
1936, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, “Fantastic art dada Surrealism”
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”
1943, New York, Knoedler Gallery, “An Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by 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”
1994, Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, "Dalí Joven, 1918-1930"
1994, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Dali: The Early Years"
1994, London, Hayward Gallery, "Dali: The Early Years"
1995, Barcelona, Palau Robert, "Dali: els Anys Joves, 1918-1930"
1995, St. Petersburg, Salvador Dali Museum, “The Young Dali: Works from 1914-1930”
1998, Rio de Janeiro, Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, "Dali Monumental"
1998, Sao Paulo, Museum of Art, "Dali Monumental"
1998, Liverpool, Tate Gallery, “Dali: A Mythology”
1999, Fukuoka, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, "Dali Exhibition 1999"
1999, Shinjuku(Tokyo), Mitsukoshi Museum of Art, "Dali Exhibition 1999"
2004, Venezia, Palazzo Grassi, "Dali Retrospective"
2005, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, "Dali Retrospective" more

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