A painting by Salvador Dalí thus far held in a private collection will be going on display in New York. The news come only a few weeks after two Dalí paintings previously held privately would be auctioned for the first time.
The painting dates to 1932 and has been part of two private collections for the past 75 years. It has been confirmed as an authentic Dalí by expert Nicolas Descharnes. It is signed “Gala Salvador Dalí” as this was how the artist chose to pay tribute to his wife, Gala. The painting, measuring 23.8×16.3cm depicts a pole protruding from the interior of a darkened window. This motif is found in other Dalí works from this period, as for instance in the famous “Morphological Echo” from 1935. Descharnes believes that the painting is a study containing the artist’s two obsessions in these years, the pole and the window.
According to Nicolas Descharnes, Dalí was inspired by the masts of fishing boats in the small village of Port Lligat, in Spain, where he lived with Gala from 1932 until 1982. The window, is another of the artist’s obsessions, as it is on a wall and shown from the outside, the interior being dark.
It took Descharnes nine months of going through archives and conducting tests, such as infrared photography and pigment analyses as well as archival research to verify that it was indeed an authentic Dalí. The pigments and materials are period appropriate and also tests found that the stretcher was also made in Spain, further supporting the theory it is an authentic. Although it was difficult for Descharnes to trace the exhibition history of the work without a title, he believes it was displayed at a Galerie Pierre Colle of Paris exhibition in 1932 among other untitled works by the artist.
The painting is not so far included in the catalogue raisonné of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation in Spain but has been registered in the archive managed by Descharnes.
The picture will be on display at the Heather James Fine Art Gallery, New York, by appointment.