An unpublished painting from 1932 by Salvador Dalí has been rediscovered in a private collection. Extensive study, including infrared photography, signature and pigment analysis, and archival research led to the painting’s certification as a work by Salvador Dalí by Nicolas Descharnes (an expert who, in 2014, authenticated Dalí’s “The Intrauterine Birth of Salvador Dalí,” circa 1921) and registration in the Archives Descharnes.
“Untitled,” (shown above) depicts a flagpole and/or a boat mast emerging from a darkened window, casting a shadow on fragments of a dilapidated brick wall, set against a cloudy skyscape, and a barren landscape. While the imagery’s symbolic significance is intentionally left unclear, the window alludes to the little house Dalí bought in Port Lligat, Spain, in 1930, and lived in with his wife Gala.
According to Descharnes, “This is the first known painting in which Dalí reveals to the public the combination of two new recurring obsessions that appear in his work in 1932: a suspended mast, and a window on a wall shown from an outside perspective displaying the darkness of an interior.”
The majority of Dalí’s important works painted during the 1930s, the crucial decade when he created his most famous imagery, are held in museum collections, and only a handful have appeared on the market over the past decade.
The painting is currently on view and available at Heather James Fine Art New York, a new private gallery on the Upper East Side. (Heather James Fine Art also operates galleries in Palm Desert, California, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.) “We are delighted to have this rediscovered painting by Dalí on exhibit at our New York gallery,” says James Carona, founder of Heather James Fine Art. “It presents a unique opportunity to own an exceptional work with a distinguished provenance that has remained in private hands for over 75 years.”
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[…] During the 1930s Salvador Dalí’s most famous imagery and most important artworks were created. Now a new work from that period is on view and available at Heather James Fine Art New York, a new private gallery on the Upper East Side. You can see an image of the work here. […]