TWO OF SALVADOR DALI'S WATERCOLOUR FRUIT STUDIES
If you first look at the paintings above, you would swear they look like the familiar 19th century botanical lithographs. However a closer inspection, and you notice there is a plum that appears to be running away, the raspberries look embarrassed and the grapefruit … well, what is going on here? the viewer has to ask.
The 14 original watercolour fruit studies are in fact by the surrealist artist Salvador Dali and are remarkable because they have remained more or less hidden since 1969, since the year of their creation.
William O'Reilly, the director of impressionist and modern art at Bonhams, London, at the auction house, announced their sale recently. "One reason being they are so fresh and are absolutely unseen." They were commissioned in 1969 by the publisher Jean-Paul Schneider and then became a series of lithographs. The publisher kept the originals until they were sold in the year 2000 to an unnamed European collector, who is now putting them on the market for sale again.
The works have names such as Hasty Plum, Raspberry Blush, Wild Blackberries and Erotic Grapefruit, which includes a leaf falling backwards as it is drenched by a shower of juice. Personally I think they are absolutely delightful. Salvador Dali was a prolific artist in his time, and was very diverse in painting in various mediums and styles. Each painting is valued at 40,000-70,000 thousand pounds with the series expected to make close to one million. O'Reilly said the paintings shone a light on the artist's hyper-fertile imagination, but said they were subversive and ahead of their time as well as entertaining.
Clearly with this work, Dali is inspired by the genuine 19th-century botanical lithographs and paintings done in a similar way by the Chapman Brothers, who were known to take real Goya prints and embellish them, in a similar fashion to Dali's paintings.
The works will be sold in the middle of next month in June 2013. In another post further on, I will display some of the other paintings that are part of this set.
Andrew Ioannidis
The 14 original watercolour fruit studies are in fact by the surrealist artist Salvador Dali and are remarkable because they have remained more or less hidden since 1969, since the year of their creation.
William O'Reilly, the director of impressionist and modern art at Bonhams, London, at the auction house, announced their sale recently. "One reason being they are so fresh and are absolutely unseen." They were commissioned in 1969 by the publisher Jean-Paul Schneider and then became a series of lithographs. The publisher kept the originals until they were sold in the year 2000 to an unnamed European collector, who is now putting them on the market for sale again.
The works have names such as Hasty Plum, Raspberry Blush, Wild Blackberries and Erotic Grapefruit, which includes a leaf falling backwards as it is drenched by a shower of juice. Personally I think they are absolutely delightful. Salvador Dali was a prolific artist in his time, and was very diverse in painting in various mediums and styles. Each painting is valued at 40,000-70,000 thousand pounds with the series expected to make close to one million. O'Reilly said the paintings shone a light on the artist's hyper-fertile imagination, but said they were subversive and ahead of their time as well as entertaining.
Clearly with this work, Dali is inspired by the genuine 19th-century botanical lithographs and paintings done in a similar way by the Chapman Brothers, who were known to take real Goya prints and embellish them, in a similar fashion to Dali's paintings.
The works will be sold in the middle of next month in June 2013. In another post further on, I will display some of the other paintings that are part of this set.
Andrew Ioannidis
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