Dalí adores to copy! Like certain Spanish mystics, it is in the moment of his most
imperialistic realism that he enables us to reach the highest summit of mysticism.
- Michel Tapie
imperialistic realism that he enables us to reach the highest summit of mysticism.
- Michel Tapie
Portrait of C. Z. Guest, 1958.
Oil on canvas, 76 x 56 cm (29.92” x 22.05”).
Private collection.
Oil on canvas, 76 x 56 cm (29.92” x 22.05”).
Private collection.
One of Dalí’s most striking society portraits of the 1950s is that of socialite Lucy Douglas Guest (b. Cochrane), better known as C.Z. Guest (1920 - 2003). Considered society “royalty,” Guest was born into a WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant) Bostonian family, and her father was an investment banker. She acquired the name C.Z. as a young girl by way of her brother’s nickname for her, Sissy, as he could not pronounce the word “sister.”[1]
As a young woman C.Z. veered toward the Bohemian lifestyle, trying her hand at acting, joining the Ziegfeld Follies, and notoriously travelling to Mexico where Diego Rivera painted her as a nude odalisque. (This canvas apparently hung over the bar in the Hotel Reforma in Mexico City, and for reasons of propriety, was hastily purchased and removed by her fiancé’s family before their wedding.[2]) The man she was to marry in 1947, was Winston Frederick Churchill Guest, an international polo star and an heir to the Phipps steel fortune. He was the Anglo-American son of Baron Ivor Bertie Guest and Lady Spencer-Churchill, a relative of Winston Churchill’s. In addition to this respectable pedigree, the couple were devoted to the arts, and even held their marriage at Ernest Hemingway’s home in Havana, Cuba, with the writer acting as best man. They had two children: a son, Alexander, in 1954, and nine years later, Cornelia, who became a celebrated debutante and aspiring actress.
Guest remained very active post-marriage, and grew to be a fixture of New York high society, a horsewoman, an authority on gardening, a syndicated columnist and author, a clothing designer, and an acquaintance to an astonishing range of famous figures of the latter half of the twentieth century. These included people from all walks of life, among them Elsa Maxwell and Rosemary Chisholm, who also knew and commissioned portraits by Dalí. Friends ranged from Andy Warhol and Cecil Beaton to the Maharaja of Jaipur and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The latter were particularly close, and became godparents to both the Guest children.
In addition to her wide social circle and decidedly privileged life, Guest was also considered one of America’s classic beauties. Writer Jill Gerston once offered the following description of her:
"With her pale skin, blue eyes, ash-blond hair and trim figure, she is cut from the same cool, silky cloth as Grace Kelly. It is a patrician beauty that is indigenous to socially registered enclaves like Palm Beach and Southampton, a sporty, outdoorsy look that eschews makeup, hairspray and anything trendy. She has an outspoken, coolly self-assured manner and a throaty, well-modulated voice with a trace of a British accent."[3]
In his portrait, Dalí has captured some of these features, but rather than focus on physical beauty, he is far more interested in character, portraying Guest as stiffly formal and underscoring her social position. As Lynn Hirschberg wrote of the portrait in a New York Times article aptly titled “To the Manor Born,” “She looks icy, regal and entirely representative of her class.”[4] The frontal, seated stance C.Z. takes here was often reserved for gods and kings in the history of art, as Shearer West explains in his 2004 compendium Portraiture. “Although the stark frontal view was not employed frequently . . . ,” he writes “the seated figure was commonly used to represent power.” In addition, “[f]rontality was often combined with a seated pose that further reinforced an aura of divinity and command, particularly if the subject of the portrait was seated on a throne.” [5] This is decidedly the case here, and as Guest’s good friend Truman Capote described this “cool vanilla lady,” she very much embodies American white privilege at its apex. As one writer put it, “If WASPishness were a religion, this would be the Madonna.”[6]
As a young woman C.Z. veered toward the Bohemian lifestyle, trying her hand at acting, joining the Ziegfeld Follies, and notoriously travelling to Mexico where Diego Rivera painted her as a nude odalisque. (This canvas apparently hung over the bar in the Hotel Reforma in Mexico City, and for reasons of propriety, was hastily purchased and removed by her fiancé’s family before their wedding.[2]) The man she was to marry in 1947, was Winston Frederick Churchill Guest, an international polo star and an heir to the Phipps steel fortune. He was the Anglo-American son of Baron Ivor Bertie Guest and Lady Spencer-Churchill, a relative of Winston Churchill’s. In addition to this respectable pedigree, the couple were devoted to the arts, and even held their marriage at Ernest Hemingway’s home in Havana, Cuba, with the writer acting as best man. They had two children: a son, Alexander, in 1954, and nine years later, Cornelia, who became a celebrated debutante and aspiring actress.
Guest remained very active post-marriage, and grew to be a fixture of New York high society, a horsewoman, an authority on gardening, a syndicated columnist and author, a clothing designer, and an acquaintance to an astonishing range of famous figures of the latter half of the twentieth century. These included people from all walks of life, among them Elsa Maxwell and Rosemary Chisholm, who also knew and commissioned portraits by Dalí. Friends ranged from Andy Warhol and Cecil Beaton to the Maharaja of Jaipur and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The latter were particularly close, and became godparents to both the Guest children.
In addition to her wide social circle and decidedly privileged life, Guest was also considered one of America’s classic beauties. Writer Jill Gerston once offered the following description of her:
"With her pale skin, blue eyes, ash-blond hair and trim figure, she is cut from the same cool, silky cloth as Grace Kelly. It is a patrician beauty that is indigenous to socially registered enclaves like Palm Beach and Southampton, a sporty, outdoorsy look that eschews makeup, hairspray and anything trendy. She has an outspoken, coolly self-assured manner and a throaty, well-modulated voice with a trace of a British accent."[3]
In his portrait, Dalí has captured some of these features, but rather than focus on physical beauty, he is far more interested in character, portraying Guest as stiffly formal and underscoring her social position. As Lynn Hirschberg wrote of the portrait in a New York Times article aptly titled “To the Manor Born,” “She looks icy, regal and entirely representative of her class.”[4] The frontal, seated stance C.Z. takes here was often reserved for gods and kings in the history of art, as Shearer West explains in his 2004 compendium Portraiture. “Although the stark frontal view was not employed frequently . . . ,” he writes “the seated figure was commonly used to represent power.” In addition, “[f]rontality was often combined with a seated pose that further reinforced an aura of divinity and command, particularly if the subject of the portrait was seated on a throne.” [5] This is decidedly the case here, and as Guest’s good friend Truman Capote described this “cool vanilla lady,” she very much embodies American white privilege at its apex. As one writer put it, “If WASPishness were a religion, this would be the Madonna.”[6]
Dalí reading Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine with detail from
Portrait of C.Z. Guest on the front cover, circa 1976.
Portrait of C.Z. Guest on the front cover, circa 1976.
Guest’s privilege meant she was able to indulge her simple, yet elegant tastes in fashion and couture, and one year after the portrait was painted, she was inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. Despite this recognition of her personal style and easy glamour, Guest is casually dressed for her portrait, wearing a sunny gold, brown and white floral print she might don on a July day at home. But while in casual day dress for the portrait, her sophistication and means are indexed through the profusion of large, ladylike pearls around her neck, in her ears, and on her ring finger. Guest also wears a beige cardigan, cashmere no doubt, that was one of her trademarks. In fact, almost three decades later Guest launched a small fashion collection that was mainly made up of cashmere sweaters.[7]
The background of Portrait of C. Z. Guest is an open expanse typical of most Dalí portraits, with a bright blue sky that sets off Guest’s pale blue eyes, and accentuates her cool, detached gaze. Behind her are two white horses: the one on the right is rampant, while the one on the left is mounted by a rider in a sportsman-like pose. These equine allusions allude to the Guests’ participation in the horsey set, and in particular, her show jumping skills and her husband’s status as a champion polo player. At the bottom left of the canvas, Dalí has placed two white flowers, one of which appears to be a white marigold, the other a milk maid flower. Typically a symbol of purity, in this context these two simple blooms perhaps index Guest’s love of horticulture and penchant for gardening at her estate.
The background of Portrait of C. Z. Guest is an open expanse typical of most Dalí portraits, with a bright blue sky that sets off Guest’s pale blue eyes, and accentuates her cool, detached gaze. Behind her are two white horses: the one on the right is rampant, while the one on the left is mounted by a rider in a sportsman-like pose. These equine allusions allude to the Guests’ participation in the horsey set, and in particular, her show jumping skills and her husband’s status as a champion polo player. At the bottom left of the canvas, Dalí has placed two white flowers, one of which appears to be a white marigold, the other a milk maid flower. Typically a symbol of purity, in this context these two simple blooms perhaps index Guest’s love of horticulture and penchant for gardening at her estate.
Portrait of C.Z. Guest hung in the Guests’ sitting room at Templeton in Old Westbury, Long Island.
For decades Portrait of C. Z. Guest hung over the fireplace at Templeton in Old Westbury, the Guest’s sprawling twenty-eight-room Long Island estate, where it was much admired by visitors. In a 1961 interview with The Australian Women's Weekly the Duchess of Windsor revealed how she thought the portrait was “enchanting,” and wished she could also afford to have one done by Dalí.[8] Andy Warhol, who was a good friend of the family’s, was so taken with the work that he placed a detail of it on the front cover of the August, 1976 issue of Interview, bathed in a blue wash. Despite such accolades however, her daughter Cornelia sold the work after her mother’s death, claiming C.Z. never liked it.[9]
Portrait of Alexander Guest, 1959.
Oil on canvas, 51 x 41 cm (20.00” x 16.14”).
Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, Dalí bequest.
Oil on canvas, 51 x 41 cm (20.00” x 16.14”).
Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, Dalí bequest.
This however did not prevent the Guests from requesting another portrait commission from Dalí, this time of her son, Alexander, in 1958. Uncharacteristically of the painter, he wrote about the commission. In the entry for September 1, 1958 in his Diary of a Genius, on his last day in New York before embarking on a voyage to Europe the artist notes “I arrive five minutes early for lunch with Gala. Before I have time to sit down, there is a phone call from Palm Beach. Mr. Winston Guest is on the line and asks me to paint The Virgin of Guadalupe as well as a portrait of his twelve-year-old son Alexander who, I had noticed, wore his hair crew-cut like a baby chicken.”[10] The result of the commission was Portrait of Alexander Guest which, considering Dalí’s frequent reference to Valaszquez in his work, may be have been inspired by, or a reference to the seventeeth century artist’s Prince Baltasar Carlos as a Hunter (1635-36), which Dalí would have been familiar with from the Prado in Madrid. Both works feature boys of a tender age standing in a mountainous landscape, near a tree, and Guest herself cites Velasquez in reference to the portrait, although in less than flattering terms.
Alexander Guest with his family, Saratoga, 1966.
Portrait of Alexander Guest was the artist’s second known attempt at a society portrait of a child, and it was not altogether successful. In it the young boy, who is actually four or five years old, not twelve (Dalí was known to be largely indifferent to children) wears brown shorts, a short-sleeved white shirt, and white shoes and socks. The artist chose to smooth the boy’s downy crew-cut, but is less successful with his expression, which appears rather cock-eyed, as Dalí has not effectively carried off the perspective of the face turned at three-quarters. Comparing the works to photographs of the young Alexander, it is clear he has also rendered the boy’s skull significantly larger than nature had endowed. Behind the boy, Dalí has dabbed in a barren, rocky landscape, with a low, snow-capped mountain. To the left is a spindly sapling roughly echoing the boy’s posture and surely intended to reflect his tender age. The brushwork is loose throughout, and the canvas lacks the detail of Dalí’s other portraits, a characteristic that would become increasingly more common in his portraits from the late 1950s on. Far from Dalí’s hand, this suggests that he may have entrusted the background details to an assistant, most likely Timothy Phillips. The result is that the portrait has an unfinished quality, although as it is signed lower right, Dalí evidently considered the commission complete.
Diego Velasquez, Prince Baltasar Carlos as a Hunter, 1635-36
Museo del Prado, Madrid.
Museo del Prado, Madrid.
Not surprisingly, the Guests were not impressed by the work, as C.Z. explained in candid terms in an interview in the New York Times in 2001. “Salvador gave him what looked like a harelip and a huge head,” she stated. “He looked like one of those Velázquez dwarfs the king and queen had around, and Winston would not accept the painting.”[11] Alexander Michael Douglas Cochrane Guest (b. 1954) grew up to be a gemologist, and to deal in major estate jewelry in New York. His opinion of the likeness and the history of its execution have not been recorded. What is known is that the rejected portrait stayed in Dalí’s possession, and the artist bequeathed it to the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, where it now resides.
Portrait of Edith Hale Harkness, 1958 (detail).
Medium, ground, location unknown.
Medium, ground, location unknown.
One year before he completed his Portrait of Alexander Guest, Dalí painted another child, the nine year old Edith Hale Harkness. This commission no doubt came about through Dalí’s intriguing professional relationship with Edith’s mother, the American millionaire dance impresario Rebekah Harkness (1915–1982) who, according to her biographer Craig Unger, “dazzled and infuriated the dance world in the sixties and seventies” with her wealth and eccentricity.[12] Harkness has enjoyed a resurgence of interest of late thanks to pop singer Taylor Swift, as Harkness was once the owner of Holiday House, Swift's current Watch Hill, Rhode Island, home.
The daughter of a wealthy businessman, she married four times, but her union with Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness made her one of America’s wealthiest women in her day. Sadly much of this fortune was squandered on luxuries, high-end properties, dubious hangers-on, as well as numerous philanthropic and artistic pursuits. Harkness built up something of a ballet empire in New York, including remodeling a large, sumptuously decorated theatre into the nation’s first venue dedicated exclusive to dance. She also underwrote an important ballet school and dancers' residence called Harkness House, and most famously she founded and directed the controversial and innovative Harkness Ballet dance company which ran from 1964 - 1975.[13]
In New York, Dalí found himself in Rebekah Harkness’s orbit, and made a number of remarkable items of jewelery for her with the fine jeweler Carlos Alemany. This included his famous golden Étoile de Mer brooch, encrusted with rubies, diamonds, emeralds, an enormous pearl, and topped off with removable butterflies. At parties, Rebekah occasionally wore this fully-articulated piece, shaped like a starfish, clamped onto one of her breasts.[14] For $250,000 (a fortune at the time), she also purchased Dalí’s celebrated Chalice of Life, an extraordinary decorative urn which he also created with Alemany, in 1965. Made of yellow gold, this vessel is eighteen-inches high and decorated with delicate butterflies encrusted with diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies. The top of the urn revolves on a clockwork mechanism, and as it does, the butterflies’ wings mechanically flutter.[15] Harkness apparently requested that her remains be placed in the Chalice of Life after she was cremated, so that her ashes could “pirouette forever.”[16]
The daughter of a wealthy businessman, she married four times, but her union with Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness made her one of America’s wealthiest women in her day. Sadly much of this fortune was squandered on luxuries, high-end properties, dubious hangers-on, as well as numerous philanthropic and artistic pursuits. Harkness built up something of a ballet empire in New York, including remodeling a large, sumptuously decorated theatre into the nation’s first venue dedicated exclusive to dance. She also underwrote an important ballet school and dancers' residence called Harkness House, and most famously she founded and directed the controversial and innovative Harkness Ballet dance company which ran from 1964 - 1975.[13]
In New York, Dalí found himself in Rebekah Harkness’s orbit, and made a number of remarkable items of jewelery for her with the fine jeweler Carlos Alemany. This included his famous golden Étoile de Mer brooch, encrusted with rubies, diamonds, emeralds, an enormous pearl, and topped off with removable butterflies. At parties, Rebekah occasionally wore this fully-articulated piece, shaped like a starfish, clamped onto one of her breasts.[14] For $250,000 (a fortune at the time), she also purchased Dalí’s celebrated Chalice of Life, an extraordinary decorative urn which he also created with Alemany, in 1965. Made of yellow gold, this vessel is eighteen-inches high and decorated with delicate butterflies encrusted with diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies. The top of the urn revolves on a clockwork mechanism, and as it does, the butterflies’ wings mechanically flutter.[15] Harkness apparently requested that her remains be placed in the Chalice of Life after she was cremated, so that her ashes could “pirouette forever.”[16]
Dalí’s Chalice of Life, made by the jeweler Alemany and purchased
for Rebekah Harkness to be used as an urn for her remains.
Gold, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, Lapis lazuli,
the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Figueres, Spain.
for Rebekah Harkness to be used as an urn for her remains.
Gold, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, Lapis lazuli,
the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Figueres, Spain.
Another notable fruit of the Dalí-Harkness friendship was when Rebeccah brought her troupe to Barcelona in May 1966. Dalí staged an extraordinary “happening” where he painted the interior of a giant inflatable plastic dome in Barcelona’s Güell Park, assisted by the Harkness Ballet dancers.[17] The artist also produced a number of watercolour designs for Harkness for the ballet Universo ilimitado. In addition to jewels and chalices and dance collaborations, records in the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation archives also show that a contract was made up for Dalí to paint a series of portraits of the dance patron. This document, dated March 20, 1962, has the word “KARMA” written as a headline (a nickname Harkness used among friends), and is addressed to Harkness’s East 69th Street apartment in New York. In it, Dalí wrote “I confirm our agreement to paint four (4) portraits of Incarnation of you, plus one painting Synthesis-Futuristic, of the total price of Fifty Thousand Dollars, with an advance of 5,000 now and 10 in Jan. 1963, and the remaining 35,000 upon completion of the portraits.”[18]
As no portraits of Mrs. Harkness by Dalí are known to exist, it can be assumed that the commission was never carried out. Somewhere along the line, Rebekah Harkness did however see the completion of one portrait commission from Dalí, of Edith (1949-1982), the youngest of her three children, and the only one Rebekah had with William Harkness. This child, whom Unger describes as “beautiful, bright, shy, vulnerable,” was by all accounts very different from her mother. While Rebekah was extravagant, impulsive, and “highly susceptible to sycophantic praise,” Edith was diffident, down to earth, and apparently “painfully embarrassed by the family riches.”[19] Unger writes that even as a young child, there was never anything naive or childlike about her, which he felt had to do with the burdens and expectations imposed on her by her mother.[20] Packed off frequently to psychiatric institutions, a cousin explains that “She knew exactly what was going on . . . That’s why she spent so much time in mental hospitals. It was other people’s intention that she be insane, that she be under control.”[21]
As no portraits of Mrs. Harkness by Dalí are known to exist, it can be assumed that the commission was never carried out. Somewhere along the line, Rebekah Harkness did however see the completion of one portrait commission from Dalí, of Edith (1949-1982), the youngest of her three children, and the only one Rebekah had with William Harkness. This child, whom Unger describes as “beautiful, bright, shy, vulnerable,” was by all accounts very different from her mother. While Rebekah was extravagant, impulsive, and “highly susceptible to sycophantic praise,” Edith was diffident, down to earth, and apparently “painfully embarrassed by the family riches.”[19] Unger writes that even as a young child, there was never anything naive or childlike about her, which he felt had to do with the burdens and expectations imposed on her by her mother.[20] Packed off frequently to psychiatric institutions, a cousin explains that “She knew exactly what was going on . . . That’s why she spent so much time in mental hospitals. It was other people’s intention that she be insane, that she be under control.”[21]
Rudolf Nureyev and Rebekah Harkness, sitting in front of Dalí’s portrait of
Edith Harkness, about 1963.
Photo Ira Rosenburg, in Craig Unger, Blue Blood.
Edith Harkness, about 1963.
Photo Ira Rosenburg, in Craig Unger, Blue Blood.
Period documents reveal that this fragile girl was painted in the first half of 1958, when she was about ten years old.[22] The work is believed to be in a private collection in New York, and to date, it has never been published. It does, fortunately, appear in the background of a black and white photograph of Rebekah Harkness sitting on a sofa with Rudolph Nureyev, which offers a glimpse of Dali’s quirky approach. This photograph shows an image of Edith sitting inside a glass-covered aviary, which rests upon a delicate wrought metal stand. Birds, presumably released from the cage, fly around her, and below the cage is what looks like a snail's shell. The implied narrative is that the little girl has opened the bird cage and climbed in, and the glass frame and pedestal give her the appearance of a precious object in a china cabinet. Her pose, however, resembles that of an Eastern religious figure, such as a swami or Buddha. This impression is reinforced by Edith’s long, loosely-flowing hair, and her voluminous robe. The girl’s hands do not appear to be visible, although one bare foot clearly pokes awkwardly from beneath her skirt. Also awkward is Dalí’s placement of the figure on the floor of the cage, which does not properly correspond in terms of perspective. This gives Edith the appearance of levitating, and indeed, the overall impression is otherworldly.
Edith Hale Harkness as a girl.
Craig Unger, Blue Blood.
Craig Unger, Blue Blood.
Although depicting a little girl sitting in an aviary seems suitably surrealist for an artist like Dalí, according to Rebekah Harkness, the idea was not his. One newspaper quotes her as saying that “The family’s pet bird died and Edith had taken to sitting in the deserted cage to mourn it. Therefore, Dalí painted her as she was.” Alternately, Unger writes that “When she posed for the painting, young Edith told Dalí that only one image could capture her spirit: a bird trapped in a gilded cage.”[23] The shell placed squarely below the aloft girl suggests that it might also have referred to the girl's need to feel secure in a difficult environment. According to the Gala-Salvador Dalí website, the artist was "enchanted by their spiral formation and their hard amour-like shell with a soft interior, and to him it symbolizes "protection and self-preservation."
When the finished portrait was unveiled, Rebekah’s acquaintances were duly shocked. “I can’t imagine why Rebekah ever allowed it to be done,” one friend confided.[24] Nevertheless, allegedly oblivious to the painting’s symbolism, Harkness proudly displayed it, and it was immediately shown publicly at the Parrish Art Museum in New York in August of 1958. It subsequently hung in Harkness House, the headquarters for the Harkness Ballet and was last recorded just after Harkness’s death in the Carlyle Hotel in New York, as part of her estate awaiting distribution.[25] The work had been willed to Edith, who tragically, after numerous attempts, finally succeeded in committing suicide in 1982, soon after her mother died.[26]
When the finished portrait was unveiled, Rebekah’s acquaintances were duly shocked. “I can’t imagine why Rebekah ever allowed it to be done,” one friend confided.[24] Nevertheless, allegedly oblivious to the painting’s symbolism, Harkness proudly displayed it, and it was immediately shown publicly at the Parrish Art Museum in New York in August of 1958. It subsequently hung in Harkness House, the headquarters for the Harkness Ballet and was last recorded just after Harkness’s death in the Carlyle Hotel in New York, as part of her estate awaiting distribution.[25] The work had been willed to Edith, who tragically, after numerous attempts, finally succeeded in committing suicide in 1982, soon after her mother died.[26]
Portrait of Chester Dale with his Dog Coco, 1958
Oil on canvas, 88.8 x 58.9 cm (35.04” x 23.19”)
Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Oil on canvas, 88.8 x 58.9 cm (35.04” x 23.19”)
Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
In 1958 Dalí painted another very wealthy and colourful American patron of the arts, banker Chester Dale (1883-1962). Dale began his financial career at the age of fifteen, when he worked as a runner at the New York Stock Exchange. As a youth he was a semi-professional athlete and golf enthusiast. Possessing a talent for business, he grew to own significant assets in the railroad, as well as utilities and municipal bonds in Canada and the U.S. Distinguished by his gruff and sometimes pugilistic personality, and known as something of a blowhard, one writer duly summed him up as “small, grizzled, red-haired and excitable.”[27]
In 1910 Dale married Maud Murray, a critic, painter and “fashionable former divorcée” who nurtured her husband’s interest in modern art. Together they amassed an extraordinary collection of nineteenth and twentieth century masters, largely French, including masters such as Corot, Monet, Matisse and Picasso. They became lenders to numerous institutions, donated widely, and later bequeathed a substantial collection of art and related materials to the National Gallery of Art in Washington.[28] That said, Chester was known as a pugnacious board member, and an often difficult lender to other institutions. Together with Maud, they were what one writer describes as an “irresistible force” in the American world of art and society.[29]
In 1910 Dale married Maud Murray, a critic, painter and “fashionable former divorcée” who nurtured her husband’s interest in modern art. Together they amassed an extraordinary collection of nineteenth and twentieth century masters, largely French, including masters such as Corot, Monet, Matisse and Picasso. They became lenders to numerous institutions, donated widely, and later bequeathed a substantial collection of art and related materials to the National Gallery of Art in Washington.[28] That said, Chester was known as a pugnacious board member, and an often difficult lender to other institutions. Together with Maud, they were what one writer describes as an “irresistible force” in the American world of art and society.[29]
Chester Dale and Salvador Dalí at the preview of The Sacrament of the Last Supper on Easter weekend,
March 30, 1956, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
March 30, 1956, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
The Dales also collected canvasses by Dalí, and Chester was particularly taken with the artist’s Nuclear Mysticism works of the late 1940s and ‘50s, which were often executed on a grand scale and featured religious subject matter. In 1954 the banker acquired Dalí’s famous The Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus), which he subsequently donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is also alleged to have challenged Dalí to undertake the painting of his Sacrament of the Last Supper of 1956, which he bought and donated to the National Gallery of Art.[30]
Chester enjoyed having his portrait painted, commissioning prominent artists such as George Bellows, Diego Rivera, Jean Lurçat, and Miguel Covarrubias to capture his likeness. Dalí’s portrait of the collector was apparently commissioned by Dale through the Carstairs Gallery in New York, which was directed by his friend Georges Keller, who was at that time Dalí’s New York representative. While the portrait was in progress, Dale told Fleur Cowles that he had commissioned a portrait of himself from Dalí.” “[D]uring one session of posing for him,” he recounts, “I laughed and said, ‘Dalí, some people say you are crazy, and they probably think I am too.'” To this the artist allegedly replied, “Yes, Chester, but good quality.”[31] Maud Dale died in 1953, and the following year, Chester, then seventy-one, married Maud’s long-serving secretary, Mary Towar Bullard. Dale bequeathed the portrait to the National Gallery of Art after his death in 1963, but it remained with Mary until she passed away in 1984.”[32]
Chester enjoyed having his portrait painted, commissioning prominent artists such as George Bellows, Diego Rivera, Jean Lurçat, and Miguel Covarrubias to capture his likeness. Dalí’s portrait of the collector was apparently commissioned by Dale through the Carstairs Gallery in New York, which was directed by his friend Georges Keller, who was at that time Dalí’s New York representative. While the portrait was in progress, Dale told Fleur Cowles that he had commissioned a portrait of himself from Dalí.” “[D]uring one session of posing for him,” he recounts, “I laughed and said, ‘Dalí, some people say you are crazy, and they probably think I am too.'” To this the artist allegedly replied, “Yes, Chester, but good quality.”[31] Maud Dale died in 1953, and the following year, Chester, then seventy-one, married Maud’s long-serving secretary, Mary Towar Bullard. Dale bequeathed the portrait to the National Gallery of Art after his death in 1963, but it remained with Mary until she passed away in 1984.”[32]
Diego Velázquez, Portrait of Pope Innocent X, circa 1650,
Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome.
Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome.
For his portrait Dalí presented Dale casually seated, wearing a black smoking jacket, with his arm around his beloved black poodle Coco. In the background appears a tower which still stands today on a hill at Costa Brava, near the artist’s Catalan home. On the bottom left of the work, Dalí has written “Pour Chester Dale et Coco, Mon Pape Innocent X de Velasquez,” referring to Diego Velázquez’s famous Portrait of Pope Innocent X, painted circa 1650, and generally considered one of the world’s foremost portraits. That Dalí intended to compare Dale with the seventeenth century father of the Catholic church is confirmed in his writing in a later publication that it was “The idea of facial synchronism: painting a face and wanting it to resemble another, that of Pope Innocent X, and succeeding without its being noticeable.”[33] Whether or not this held special meaning between the two is not known, although it can be presumed that the comparison was intended to be flattering. That said, Dalí continues to draw out as much “facial synchronism” as possible between Dale and his dog, especially the long shapes of their faces, and in particular, the beady directness of their gaze. The artist seems to buttress this comparison with a fifth “eye,” that of Dale’s pearl tie pin, which seems to peer out from the subject’s chest.
While Dale and Coco have been rendered in characteristically fine Dalinian detail, the background is noticeably rougher and appears to have been executed with a much less skilled hand. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine Dalí would have been capable of painting a cloud as roughly as the one on the right, as with the cliff and horizon in the background. The rocky seating arrangement is equally as badly executed, suggesting that, as with his Portrait of Alexander Guest, the bulk of the background had been left to an assistant such as Timothy Phillips.
While Dale and Coco have been rendered in characteristically fine Dalinian detail, the background is noticeably rougher and appears to have been executed with a much less skilled hand. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine Dalí would have been capable of painting a cloud as roughly as the one on the right, as with the cliff and horizon in the background. The rocky seating arrangement is equally as badly executed, suggesting that, as with his Portrait of Alexander Guest, the bulk of the background had been left to an assistant such as Timothy Phillips.
Sunrise: Sir James Dunn, 1958.
Oil on canvas, 96.8 x 72.1 cm (38.19” x 28.35”).
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
Oil on canvas, 96.8 x 72.1 cm (38.19” x 28.35”).
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
Following the death of James Dunn in January of 1956, Lady Dunn again thought to commission a painting from Dalí, this time for a posthumous portrait of her newly-departed husband. In comparison to Dalí’s earlier, decidedly hyperbolic portraits of the Lord and Lady, the result was to be straight forward and rather minimalist, making the man historian Michael Bliss called “an irascible old pirate” look decidedly less formidable and even exalted.[34] Entitled Sunrise: Portrait of Sir James Dunn, Dalí’s likeness of Sir Dunn depicts the subject from the waist up, with his arms crossed, as he gazes askance. He wears a grey-blue suit and tie, which matches his piercing eyes, set off by his snow-white hair. Comparing the painting to the photograph from which Dalí worked, it is clear the artist has smoothed away many signs of age, and given the older man a rosy, youthful glow. Behind Sir Dunn is an immense blue sky filled with billowing clouds tinged with gold. The overall effect is of a man in command of himself and his surroundings: that is, presumably, the heavens in which he rests.
Correspondence concerning the work survives, and documents how exacting Lady Dunn was regarding this commission. Such precautions were perhaps necessary, as one writer put it, in achieving a “corrective” to the overblown imagery of La Turbie.[35] In a letter dated November 30, 1956 sent to Dalí from the Algoma Steel Corporation headquarters, Lady Dunn’s secretary writes (in French), “Lady Dunn especially wants the portrait to be done in the soft and bright sunlight of Spain and not in the darkness of a hotel in New York”[36] The next year, Dalí presented Lady Dunn with a sketch, based on a photograph of her late husband, which included the following inscription: “À Lady Dunn, Souvenir of Sun Rise, Dalí 1957.” As the Dalís knew the Dunns well socially, this inscription may reference to a specific event, or happy memory for the widow such as a sunrise they had shared together, in the requested “sunlight of Spain.”
Correspondence concerning the work survives, and documents how exacting Lady Dunn was regarding this commission. Such precautions were perhaps necessary, as one writer put it, in achieving a “corrective” to the overblown imagery of La Turbie.[35] In a letter dated November 30, 1956 sent to Dalí from the Algoma Steel Corporation headquarters, Lady Dunn’s secretary writes (in French), “Lady Dunn especially wants the portrait to be done in the soft and bright sunlight of Spain and not in the darkness of a hotel in New York”[36] The next year, Dalí presented Lady Dunn with a sketch, based on a photograph of her late husband, which included the following inscription: “À Lady Dunn, Souvenir of Sun Rise, Dalí 1957.” As the Dalís knew the Dunns well socially, this inscription may reference to a specific event, or happy memory for the widow such as a sunrise they had shared together, in the requested “sunlight of Spain.”
Sketch inscribed “À Lady Dunn, Souvenir of Sun Rise, Dalí 1957.”
Base photograph for Dalí’s Sunrise: Sir James Dunn, Portrait of Sir James Dunn.
In a subsequent letter to Dalí dated September 10, 1958, Lady Dunn gives the artist further, decidedly firm instructions regarding the execution of the work, and refers to an earlier, less satisfactory version of the piece that Dalí had evidently presented to her. “It is always understood between us,” she writes, “that unless this new painting is exactly what I must have I cannot bear to have it – it must embrace all the magical qualities and living spirit of this one.”[37]
A year after it was produced, one of the versions of the portrait was donated by Lady Dunn to the just-opened Beaverbrook Art Gallery, a brainchild of Lady Dunn’s then future second husband, Lord Beaverbrook. While the gallery’s version of the work was listed as a “replica of Into the Sunrise,” in the institution’s early literature, the two works were evidently not identical. [38] Lady Dunn made it clear in correspondence with Dalí that she would like alterations made from the prototype. “I would like you to be careful about the thumb as it is not exactly like James,” she directs Dalí, adding, “also the blue of the tie is too bright and harsh in tone – remember the buttons on the sleeve must not be obvious.” Finally, the good Lady asks if price is still $10,000 (presumably what she paid for the first one), and specifies that the measurements must not be smaller than 37 x 27 inches, otherwise, she claims, “it cannot convey the wonderful impression of HEAVEN and SPACE.”[39] Being one of Dalí’s most flattering and conventional portraits to date, and devoid of iconography or implied narratives, it is clear Christofor received what she had very specifically requested. Indeed, as Lord Beaverbrook later wrote in his biography of Sir James, “It is Lady Dunn’s favourite picture of her husband . . . The white hair and clean-cut features of James stand out clearly against a background of startling blue that was his favourite colour.”[40]
As late as 1979, the version of the portrait that was not in the Beaverbrook Art Gallery is listed in gallery literature as being in the private collection of Lady Beaverbrook (as “Christofor” became after marrying Lord Beaverbrook).[41] Its whereabouts are not known today, and it is possible that Lady Dunn/Beaverbrook wanted this work, which she considered flawed, away from the public eye. The other Sunrise: Portrait of Lord Dunn still resides at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. It is in good company, along with La Turbie, Equestrian Fantasy, and other important works by the artist, including his 1957 masterpiece, Santiago El Grande (“Saint James the Great” in Spanish – no doubt a flattery aimed at James Dunn). Being good friends and generous benefactors to Dalí, the Dunns were always eager to help the artist, even when he struggled to sell his more commercially challenging pieces. When, for example, Dalí was having difficulty finding a buyer for his monumental “classical-mystical” Madonna of Port Lligat of 1950, it was Lady Dunn who stepped in to purchase the work. This, despite the fact that a middle-aged Gala appears as the Mother of Christ, and that part of an outside wall of the Dunn’s house had to be demolished to squeeze the eleven by seven foot canvas inside.[42]
A year after it was produced, one of the versions of the portrait was donated by Lady Dunn to the just-opened Beaverbrook Art Gallery, a brainchild of Lady Dunn’s then future second husband, Lord Beaverbrook. While the gallery’s version of the work was listed as a “replica of Into the Sunrise,” in the institution’s early literature, the two works were evidently not identical. [38] Lady Dunn made it clear in correspondence with Dalí that she would like alterations made from the prototype. “I would like you to be careful about the thumb as it is not exactly like James,” she directs Dalí, adding, “also the blue of the tie is too bright and harsh in tone – remember the buttons on the sleeve must not be obvious.” Finally, the good Lady asks if price is still $10,000 (presumably what she paid for the first one), and specifies that the measurements must not be smaller than 37 x 27 inches, otherwise, she claims, “it cannot convey the wonderful impression of HEAVEN and SPACE.”[39] Being one of Dalí’s most flattering and conventional portraits to date, and devoid of iconography or implied narratives, it is clear Christofor received what she had very specifically requested. Indeed, as Lord Beaverbrook later wrote in his biography of Sir James, “It is Lady Dunn’s favourite picture of her husband . . . The white hair and clean-cut features of James stand out clearly against a background of startling blue that was his favourite colour.”[40]
As late as 1979, the version of the portrait that was not in the Beaverbrook Art Gallery is listed in gallery literature as being in the private collection of Lady Beaverbrook (as “Christofor” became after marrying Lord Beaverbrook).[41] Its whereabouts are not known today, and it is possible that Lady Dunn/Beaverbrook wanted this work, which she considered flawed, away from the public eye. The other Sunrise: Portrait of Lord Dunn still resides at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. It is in good company, along with La Turbie, Equestrian Fantasy, and other important works by the artist, including his 1957 masterpiece, Santiago El Grande (“Saint James the Great” in Spanish – no doubt a flattery aimed at James Dunn). Being good friends and generous benefactors to Dalí, the Dunns were always eager to help the artist, even when he struggled to sell his more commercially challenging pieces. When, for example, Dalí was having difficulty finding a buyer for his monumental “classical-mystical” Madonna of Port Lligat of 1950, it was Lady Dunn who stepped in to purchase the work. This, despite the fact that a middle-aged Gala appears as the Mother of Christ, and that part of an outside wall of the Dunn’s house had to be demolished to squeeze the eleven by seven foot canvas inside.[42]
Portrait of Arthur Clarke Herrington, 1958.
Oil on canvas, 38 ½ x 25 ½”.
Private collection.
Oil on canvas, 38 ½ x 25 ½”.
Private collection.
In 1958, the Indianapolis Star reported that Dalí had just completed a portrait of Arthur Clarke Herrington (b. 1931), the twenty-seven year old son of two of the state's more prominent citizens. [43] This likeness would mark the beginning of an illustrious career for the young man, who would go on to receive his doctorate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and to become an influential figure in technology and government. Among other things, this would include working for the US Atomic Energy Commission as a consultant to secretaries of defense and energy, and being a faculty member at his alma mater.
Arthur came from an educated and entrepreneurial family. His father was Arthur William Sidney Herrington, a British-born engineer who served in WWI. A founder of the Marmon-Herrington Company, which produced military vehicles used by Allied troops during WWII, Arthur senior helped develop the immensely successful General Purpose vehicle, commonly known as the Jeep.[44] Nell Clarke Herrington, Arthur’s mother, worked in the late 1920s and early ‘30s as a writer for National Geographic and Scientific American, and became the Washington correspondent for Sunday Magazine.[45] Living in Indianapolis, the couple amassed an impressive collection of American, European and Eastern art, to which Dalí’s portrait was a noteworthy addition.[46]
In an interview in 2015, Herrington recalled how the commission came about when he and his mother were together in New York in the late 1950s.[47] It began one day when Mrs. Herrington and her son went to the Carroll Carstairs Gallery on 11 East 57th Street. The gallery dealt in works by a number of artists, including Dalí, and held two shows of his work in the 1950s: one in 1954-55, and the other in 1958-59. During the Herringtons’ visit, Margaret Sharkey, who worked at the gallery, showed them various works which included some canvasses by our famous Spanish Surrealist.[48] Sharkey, whom Arthur remembers as an astute businesswoman, evidently related this encounter to the artist, and some time later, the Herringtons received a telephone call notifying them that Dalí was interested in physics, and would like to make Arthur’s acquaintance and paint his portrait. A meeting at the St. Regis was arranged, and terms were set. What followed were approximately eight sittings in which Dalí made preparatory sketches, and took photographs.
Herrington remembers his sessions with Dalí quite vividly. Describing the artist as “first and last a business man,” he also found him exceptionally professional, and surprisingly shy. That said, he observed that during one of the sittings, the telephone rang. Upon answering, much to the sitter’s surprise, Dalí “turned on” his eccentric persona, replete with bizarre speech patterns and well-rehearsed comedic accent. This carried on for a few minutes until Dalí hung up, and with an apology, he immediately returned to his logical, business-like self. The person on the telephone, he explained, had been a reporter.
During the sittings, the two frequently discussed physics. Dalí had a “remarkable mind,” Herrington recalls, was “interested in concepts of the physical world,” and possessed a working knowledge of modern physics more sophisticated than some of his colleagues at MIT. Fueling this interest, Herrington surmised, was Dalí’s search for “a larger sense of creation” — all very much in keeping with the artist’s conflation of religious and scientific theories and iconography in his mid-century Nuclear Mysticism canvases.[49]
Herrington appears in the portrait as a young, clean-cut man with dark auburn hair, dressed in a dark grey suit with brocade tie. He looks to the left, beyond the visual field of the canvas. As with so many of Dalí’s portraits, this one is rich in themes and imagery which not only reflect the character and interests of the subject, but also those of the painter himself. Indeed, the canvas is loaded with a number of intriguing objects, the meaning of some the artist relayed to the sitter. Herrington explains, for example, that the cloud of mist and rune-like tracery that appears before him signifies “modern physics: the world of uncertainty in which there is no ‘reality’ at the most basic level.” The lines that extend from his fingers, as well as the one behind him in the horizon, are “timelines” or time itself, referring both to concepts of “dealing with the physical world,” as well as the idea that the scholar had much of his life and career ahead of him.
The young man sits upon a dark brown polyhedron, and behind him in the distance is a light grey dodecahedron. These make reference to “atomic theory as expressed by the Greeks”; which is, Herrington relays, Greek theory of the physical world being made up of atoms, which were the Platonic solids or regular polyhedra; an idea that is reflected in modern science.[50] He describes Dalí’s intention as his “sitting on ‘classicism,’” and denoting a non-fixed nature, with his own future tied up “with the uncertainty of the basis of reality.” In the far distance can be seen entwined kidney-shaped objects that refer to the yin and yang symbolism from Chinese philosophy which, according to Dalí’s purview, had to do with the conflict of opposites as a basis for consideration of the structure of the physical world. Finally, Herrington summarizes the overall theme of the work in terms of the state of physics at that time and the artist’s respective understanding of it. That is, Dalí’s “depiction of the inherent uncertainties of quantum mechanics,” and the concept that at the smallest distances “dimension and time are uncertain.”[51]
Arthur came from an educated and entrepreneurial family. His father was Arthur William Sidney Herrington, a British-born engineer who served in WWI. A founder of the Marmon-Herrington Company, which produced military vehicles used by Allied troops during WWII, Arthur senior helped develop the immensely successful General Purpose vehicle, commonly known as the Jeep.[44] Nell Clarke Herrington, Arthur’s mother, worked in the late 1920s and early ‘30s as a writer for National Geographic and Scientific American, and became the Washington correspondent for Sunday Magazine.[45] Living in Indianapolis, the couple amassed an impressive collection of American, European and Eastern art, to which Dalí’s portrait was a noteworthy addition.[46]
In an interview in 2015, Herrington recalled how the commission came about when he and his mother were together in New York in the late 1950s.[47] It began one day when Mrs. Herrington and her son went to the Carroll Carstairs Gallery on 11 East 57th Street. The gallery dealt in works by a number of artists, including Dalí, and held two shows of his work in the 1950s: one in 1954-55, and the other in 1958-59. During the Herringtons’ visit, Margaret Sharkey, who worked at the gallery, showed them various works which included some canvasses by our famous Spanish Surrealist.[48] Sharkey, whom Arthur remembers as an astute businesswoman, evidently related this encounter to the artist, and some time later, the Herringtons received a telephone call notifying them that Dalí was interested in physics, and would like to make Arthur’s acquaintance and paint his portrait. A meeting at the St. Regis was arranged, and terms were set. What followed were approximately eight sittings in which Dalí made preparatory sketches, and took photographs.
Herrington remembers his sessions with Dalí quite vividly. Describing the artist as “first and last a business man,” he also found him exceptionally professional, and surprisingly shy. That said, he observed that during one of the sittings, the telephone rang. Upon answering, much to the sitter’s surprise, Dalí “turned on” his eccentric persona, replete with bizarre speech patterns and well-rehearsed comedic accent. This carried on for a few minutes until Dalí hung up, and with an apology, he immediately returned to his logical, business-like self. The person on the telephone, he explained, had been a reporter.
During the sittings, the two frequently discussed physics. Dalí had a “remarkable mind,” Herrington recalls, was “interested in concepts of the physical world,” and possessed a working knowledge of modern physics more sophisticated than some of his colleagues at MIT. Fueling this interest, Herrington surmised, was Dalí’s search for “a larger sense of creation” — all very much in keeping with the artist’s conflation of religious and scientific theories and iconography in his mid-century Nuclear Mysticism canvases.[49]
Herrington appears in the portrait as a young, clean-cut man with dark auburn hair, dressed in a dark grey suit with brocade tie. He looks to the left, beyond the visual field of the canvas. As with so many of Dalí’s portraits, this one is rich in themes and imagery which not only reflect the character and interests of the subject, but also those of the painter himself. Indeed, the canvas is loaded with a number of intriguing objects, the meaning of some the artist relayed to the sitter. Herrington explains, for example, that the cloud of mist and rune-like tracery that appears before him signifies “modern physics: the world of uncertainty in which there is no ‘reality’ at the most basic level.” The lines that extend from his fingers, as well as the one behind him in the horizon, are “timelines” or time itself, referring both to concepts of “dealing with the physical world,” as well as the idea that the scholar had much of his life and career ahead of him.
The young man sits upon a dark brown polyhedron, and behind him in the distance is a light grey dodecahedron. These make reference to “atomic theory as expressed by the Greeks”; which is, Herrington relays, Greek theory of the physical world being made up of atoms, which were the Platonic solids or regular polyhedra; an idea that is reflected in modern science.[50] He describes Dalí’s intention as his “sitting on ‘classicism,’” and denoting a non-fixed nature, with his own future tied up “with the uncertainty of the basis of reality.” In the far distance can be seen entwined kidney-shaped objects that refer to the yin and yang symbolism from Chinese philosophy which, according to Dalí’s purview, had to do with the conflict of opposites as a basis for consideration of the structure of the physical world. Finally, Herrington summarizes the overall theme of the work in terms of the state of physics at that time and the artist’s respective understanding of it. That is, Dalí’s “depiction of the inherent uncertainties of quantum mechanics,” and the concept that at the smallest distances “dimension and time are uncertain.”[51]
Portrait of John Langeloth Loeb, 1958.
Oil on canvas, 33 ½ x 26 inches (85 x 66 cm.).
Ambassador John Loeb Collection, New York.
Oil on canvas, 33 ½ x 26 inches (85 x 66 cm.).
Ambassador John Loeb Collection, New York.
The next portrait Dalí was to paint was of American investment banker, philanthropist and collector, John Langeloth Loeb (1902 - 1996). Loeb was born in St. Louis, the son of Carl Morris Loeb, a Germany immigrant who had made a fortune as a young man through his involvement with the American Metal Company. Loeb’s mother, Adeline Moses, was the daughter of an Alabama-based banker whose American ancestry dated to the pre-Revolutionary era. John Loeb also went into banking, and joined his father in helping found the New York banking and brokerage firm that was to become Loeb, Rhoades and Company.[52]
Loeb earned a bachelor of science, cum laude, from Harvard, and later became one of the university’s most generous benefactors. Just three years before Dalí painted his portrait, he gifted his alma mater an estimated $70.5 million; the largest donation the university had ever received from a living patron. Like his father, Loeb married well, and in 1926 Frances “Peter” Lehman Loeb, of the Lehman banking family, became his wife. In terms of benefaction, public affairs and board involvement, the Loebs became known as a true “force” in New York City, and were also deeply committed to the arts.[53] They had had three daughters and two sons, the eldest being John Langeloth Jr., who became an Ambassador to Denmark and a Delegate to the U.N., as well as founding the George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom. Recently, Loeb’s grandson Nick has become a celebrity in America largely due to his romantic association with the actress Sofia Vergara, as well as popular forays into the food industry.
Loeb was known to be exacting and at times formidable. As a measure of the trepidation he could inspire, one of his sons is known to have quipped during his father’s lifetime that, “Whenever I approach my father, I automatically begin to say ‘I’m sorry.’”[54] Mr. Loeb appears to have been equally as fearsome at work. As cited in the International New York Times, for example, a widely circulated cartoon depicted Loeb explaining to his wife, “No, I didn’t have a hard time at the office, but everybody else at Loeb, Rhoades did.’”[55]
Dalí’s art dealer in New York, Julien Levy, wrote a humorous account in his memoirs of how he first met Loeb in 1938 while drumming up funding for his outlandish Surrealist Dream of Venus pavilion, to be designed by Dalí for the New York World’s Fair the following year.[56] Levy portrays himself as hopelessly naïve during his pitch to Loeb’s gruff and financially savvy team, who suggested they use a cheaper, prefabricated fun house than the proposed one, and perhaps rename it “Laffland.” Confounded, Levy writes, “Were we now to finance a Surrealist pavilion which would not be known as a Surrealist pavilion, and would have no Surrealist feature, within or without? Nothing more Surrealist could have been invented by the Surrealists!” At this point, Levy writes, “I gathered up my papers and escaped.” Not surprisingly, no deal was struck for funding for the pavilion, although it is likely that Dalí and Loeb were at some point acquainted through Levy, who may have facilitated the painting commission.
Loeb earned a bachelor of science, cum laude, from Harvard, and later became one of the university’s most generous benefactors. Just three years before Dalí painted his portrait, he gifted his alma mater an estimated $70.5 million; the largest donation the university had ever received from a living patron. Like his father, Loeb married well, and in 1926 Frances “Peter” Lehman Loeb, of the Lehman banking family, became his wife. In terms of benefaction, public affairs and board involvement, the Loebs became known as a true “force” in New York City, and were also deeply committed to the arts.[53] They had had three daughters and two sons, the eldest being John Langeloth Jr., who became an Ambassador to Denmark and a Delegate to the U.N., as well as founding the George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom. Recently, Loeb’s grandson Nick has become a celebrity in America largely due to his romantic association with the actress Sofia Vergara, as well as popular forays into the food industry.
Loeb was known to be exacting and at times formidable. As a measure of the trepidation he could inspire, one of his sons is known to have quipped during his father’s lifetime that, “Whenever I approach my father, I automatically begin to say ‘I’m sorry.’”[54] Mr. Loeb appears to have been equally as fearsome at work. As cited in the International New York Times, for example, a widely circulated cartoon depicted Loeb explaining to his wife, “No, I didn’t have a hard time at the office, but everybody else at Loeb, Rhoades did.’”[55]
Dalí’s art dealer in New York, Julien Levy, wrote a humorous account in his memoirs of how he first met Loeb in 1938 while drumming up funding for his outlandish Surrealist Dream of Venus pavilion, to be designed by Dalí for the New York World’s Fair the following year.[56] Levy portrays himself as hopelessly naïve during his pitch to Loeb’s gruff and financially savvy team, who suggested they use a cheaper, prefabricated fun house than the proposed one, and perhaps rename it “Laffland.” Confounded, Levy writes, “Were we now to finance a Surrealist pavilion which would not be known as a Surrealist pavilion, and would have no Surrealist feature, within or without? Nothing more Surrealist could have been invented by the Surrealists!” At this point, Levy writes, “I gathered up my papers and escaped.” Not surprisingly, no deal was struck for funding for the pavilion, although it is likely that Dalí and Loeb were at some point acquainted through Levy, who may have facilitated the painting commission.
John Langeloth Loeb, Sr., standing next to Paul Cezanne’s L’oncle Dominique,
owned by the Loeb family. Dalí worked directly from this photograph for the portrait of Loeb.
Image rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2023.
owned by the Loeb family. Dalí worked directly from this photograph for the portrait of Loeb.
Image rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2023.
In his book Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York, author Stephen Birmingham describes Loeb as a “tall, slender, handsome, and immaculately tailored man with with jet-black hair and dark, beetling brows,” who looked “half his age.” He further explains that Loeb was a firm believer in rigid exercise, which he claimed accounted for his “youthful looks and splendid physique.” This seems an apt description of the fit, fifty-six-year-old self-possessed man who appears in a crisp black business suit with his arms confidently folded across his chest.[57]
That Dalí worked from a photograph for the creation of Portrait of John Langeloth Loeb is evinced by a black and white snapshot retained in the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation archives, and demonstrates the very literal degree to which the artist translated photographs to canvas. He chose a nondescript horizon punctuated with hills, as well as his habitual blue sky, with a light cloud to the left, and a dark cloud to the right. In the distance is a white horse with a rider swathed in a flowing red garment. The terrain behind Mr. Loeb is a sandy golden colour which becomes more detailed as it moves toward the front of the canvas, populated by rocks, rather scruffy landscape, and to the bottom left, a carpet of tiny wildflowers. A finely executed portrait in most part, the uncharacteristically rough nature of the dark cloud on the right, the crude brushwork of the rocks, and in particular the very out-of-character profusion of wildflowers, suggests once again that one of Dalí’s assistants may have added these minor details. As for the commission, it seems Mr. Loeb was pleased with the outcome, as the work was hung prominently in his Westchester estate. It remains in the family, and today belongs to his son and namesake, John Langeloth Loeb, Jr.
That Dalí worked from a photograph for the creation of Portrait of John Langeloth Loeb is evinced by a black and white snapshot retained in the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation archives, and demonstrates the very literal degree to which the artist translated photographs to canvas. He chose a nondescript horizon punctuated with hills, as well as his habitual blue sky, with a light cloud to the left, and a dark cloud to the right. In the distance is a white horse with a rider swathed in a flowing red garment. The terrain behind Mr. Loeb is a sandy golden colour which becomes more detailed as it moves toward the front of the canvas, populated by rocks, rather scruffy landscape, and to the bottom left, a carpet of tiny wildflowers. A finely executed portrait in most part, the uncharacteristically rough nature of the dark cloud on the right, the crude brushwork of the rocks, and in particular the very out-of-character profusion of wildflowers, suggests once again that one of Dalí’s assistants may have added these minor details. As for the commission, it seems Mr. Loeb was pleased with the outcome, as the work was hung prominently in his Westchester estate. It remains in the family, and today belongs to his son and namesake, John Langeloth Loeb, Jr.
Portrait of Hans Hayo Hinrichs, 1958
Medium, ground, location unknown
Medium, ground, location unknown
Portrait details and corresponding photograph.
Image rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2023.
Image rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2023.
For decades only photographs of a portrait painted by Dali, of a portly older gentleman, have been known, and the identity of the sitter has been a mystery until now. After extensive research, Karl Heinz Klumpner, one of the website authors has discovered that the portrait is of a little-known man named Hans Hayo Hinrichs (1889-1966).
Born in the town of Esens, Germany, Hinrichs left Friesland, an ancient seafaring region near the Dutch border, in 1907. This was apparently to make his way just after his father, who had been in the lumber business, died bankrupt.[58] The young man emigrated to Milwaukee (the "Munich of America"), at the invitation of an uncle, who had paid his passage. Being interested in writing, Hinrichs became an essayist. He joined the Germania Herald, a Milwaukee paper for German expatriats, and and later became editor of the Globe Trotter.[59] Writing, however, was not to be his long-term career, and in 1909 he became a representative of the Rahr Malting Co., the second largest malting company in the world. Opening a New York office, he rode out the "thirteen terrible years" of Prohibition (1920-1933) engaged in export and advertising. He finally became vice-president of the malting firm, and clearly earned enough money to afford a portrait by Salvador Dalí.
Unlike most of Dalí's clients, Hinrichs did not live in a penthouse on Park Avenue, or an impressive mansion. Instead, he preferred to be a burgher of Staten Island, where he lived in a house on the highest point of Dongan Hills, from where he had a view all the way from the George Washington Bridge to Sandy Hook. As the New York journal Staats-Zeitung observed "Over everything there lies the gleaming silver-gray of his homeland."[60] Staying close to the sea was important to Hinrichs, and as such, he also built a summer house in Quogue, Long Island.
Born in the town of Esens, Germany, Hinrichs left Friesland, an ancient seafaring region near the Dutch border, in 1907. This was apparently to make his way just after his father, who had been in the lumber business, died bankrupt.[58] The young man emigrated to Milwaukee (the "Munich of America"), at the invitation of an uncle, who had paid his passage. Being interested in writing, Hinrichs became an essayist. He joined the Germania Herald, a Milwaukee paper for German expatriats, and and later became editor of the Globe Trotter.[59] Writing, however, was not to be his long-term career, and in 1909 he became a representative of the Rahr Malting Co., the second largest malting company in the world. Opening a New York office, he rode out the "thirteen terrible years" of Prohibition (1920-1933) engaged in export and advertising. He finally became vice-president of the malting firm, and clearly earned enough money to afford a portrait by Salvador Dalí.
Unlike most of Dalí's clients, Hinrichs did not live in a penthouse on Park Avenue, or an impressive mansion. Instead, he preferred to be a burgher of Staten Island, where he lived in a house on the highest point of Dongan Hills, from where he had a view all the way from the George Washington Bridge to Sandy Hook. As the New York journal Staats-Zeitung observed "Over everything there lies the gleaming silver-gray of his homeland."[60] Staying close to the sea was important to Hinrichs, and as such, he also built a summer house in Quogue, Long Island.
Hinrichs' summer home, Kiekut, in Quogue, Long Island.
It is unclear under which circumstances Salvador Dalí and Hans Hinrichs first met. It may have been in New York City, where Dalí spent the winter months, perhaps at a gourmet restaurant, where Dali was known to have met a few of his other portrait clients. Hinrichs said of himself, referring in part to his portly girth, that he was "fond of eating." So fond, in fact, that in 1955 Hinrichs self-published a little book called The Glutton's Paradise, of which Dalí had a copy of in his library.
In addition to his culinary adventures, Hinrichs owned one of the finest fishing boats in America, called the Alone. Big game fishing was a great passion of his, and one that he shared with his friend Ernest Hemingway. He brought in marlins, Mako-sharks and other big sea game from Newfoundland down to Cabo Blanco, Peru, and held a number of record catches. After seven dedicated summers of attempted swordfishing in the blue water off northeastern Long Island, he finally caught his first. So overwhelmed by pride and joy, he gave a banquet at the New York restaurant “21,” with a goodly part of the 515-pound swordfish as the main course.[61]
Hinrichs also loved the opera. He especially appreciated the music of Richard Wagner, something he had in common with Dalí, who often listened to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde while working in his studio. This began on Thanksgiving Day 1909, when young Hans bought a ticket to the Metropolitan Opera House, and was stunned by a matinee performance of Parsifal. It was his first opera and he was overcome by the magical combination of voice, orchestra and acting. Over the years he increased his knowledge of music and became a Wagner afficionado, with regular opera-going and cultural visits to Bayreuth, where there has long been an annual Wagner festival. His best friend was composer Carl Orff, and other musical acquaintances included conductors Herbert von Karajan and Fritz Reiner.[62]
Today Hans Hinrichs is remembered in Germany as a humanitarian, funding and organizing deliveries for the suffering people of his homeland after WWII, and sending his hometown considerable amounts of money for rehabilitation. Only weeks before his death, he donated a grand piano to the town of Esens to support young musical talent. In gratitude, Esens made him an honorary citizen in 1953, and a bust of Hans Hinrichs stands today in front of the Theodor Thomas Hall, named after the founder of the Chicago Symphony, another important native of the small town.[63]
Thanks to a photograph of Hans Hinrichs that survived in the files of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, we know that like many other of Dali’s portraits, this one was also painted directly from a photograph. The comparison of the two images also shows that Dali has somewhat flattered his sitter, making him slightly less rotund, and diminishing his double chin. The painting shows a blue-eyed man of Northern European appearance who is in his sixties, ruddy-cheeked and with brown hair turning to grey. Clearly Dali decided to work with Hinrich’s love of fishing and the sea as theme, and he depicts his subject in bright sunlight, in front of a wide bay, sitting in a chair made of sea creatures. Dalí entitled the portrait "Philosophical Interlude"[64], referring to the fish tail that acts as a book rest upon which is a volume of verse with the prominent name of Goethe upon it. Goethe, of course, being the much-revered German poet, writer, scientist, statesman and critic. Referencing his German roots, the general implication is that Hinrichs was a culturally sophisticated intellectual, and a lover of philosophy, and of course fish and the sea.
Hinrichs had lost his wife Minnie (born Wilhelmine Louise Badenhausen), a year before the portrait was painted, and the open book could also mean the beginning of a new chapter in the widower's life. He did, in fact, marry again, and his second wife Marion McDonald died in 1998.[65] In the distance of the portrait is a rocky coastline and upon the cliff is a round object with cracks and a large hole, a flock of swallows flying inside. In keeping with Dali’s known portrait symbolism, the birds most likely stand for Hinrichs’ love of classical music, and as such, it is tempting to read the round, hollow structure as a concert hall or an abstract depiction of opera itself.
In addition to his culinary adventures, Hinrichs owned one of the finest fishing boats in America, called the Alone. Big game fishing was a great passion of his, and one that he shared with his friend Ernest Hemingway. He brought in marlins, Mako-sharks and other big sea game from Newfoundland down to Cabo Blanco, Peru, and held a number of record catches. After seven dedicated summers of attempted swordfishing in the blue water off northeastern Long Island, he finally caught his first. So overwhelmed by pride and joy, he gave a banquet at the New York restaurant “21,” with a goodly part of the 515-pound swordfish as the main course.[61]
Hinrichs also loved the opera. He especially appreciated the music of Richard Wagner, something he had in common with Dalí, who often listened to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde while working in his studio. This began on Thanksgiving Day 1909, when young Hans bought a ticket to the Metropolitan Opera House, and was stunned by a matinee performance of Parsifal. It was his first opera and he was overcome by the magical combination of voice, orchestra and acting. Over the years he increased his knowledge of music and became a Wagner afficionado, with regular opera-going and cultural visits to Bayreuth, where there has long been an annual Wagner festival. His best friend was composer Carl Orff, and other musical acquaintances included conductors Herbert von Karajan and Fritz Reiner.[62]
Today Hans Hinrichs is remembered in Germany as a humanitarian, funding and organizing deliveries for the suffering people of his homeland after WWII, and sending his hometown considerable amounts of money for rehabilitation. Only weeks before his death, he donated a grand piano to the town of Esens to support young musical talent. In gratitude, Esens made him an honorary citizen in 1953, and a bust of Hans Hinrichs stands today in front of the Theodor Thomas Hall, named after the founder of the Chicago Symphony, another important native of the small town.[63]
Thanks to a photograph of Hans Hinrichs that survived in the files of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, we know that like many other of Dali’s portraits, this one was also painted directly from a photograph. The comparison of the two images also shows that Dali has somewhat flattered his sitter, making him slightly less rotund, and diminishing his double chin. The painting shows a blue-eyed man of Northern European appearance who is in his sixties, ruddy-cheeked and with brown hair turning to grey. Clearly Dali decided to work with Hinrich’s love of fishing and the sea as theme, and he depicts his subject in bright sunlight, in front of a wide bay, sitting in a chair made of sea creatures. Dalí entitled the portrait "Philosophical Interlude"[64], referring to the fish tail that acts as a book rest upon which is a volume of verse with the prominent name of Goethe upon it. Goethe, of course, being the much-revered German poet, writer, scientist, statesman and critic. Referencing his German roots, the general implication is that Hinrichs was a culturally sophisticated intellectual, and a lover of philosophy, and of course fish and the sea.
Hinrichs had lost his wife Minnie (born Wilhelmine Louise Badenhausen), a year before the portrait was painted, and the open book could also mean the beginning of a new chapter in the widower's life. He did, in fact, marry again, and his second wife Marion McDonald died in 1998.[65] In the distance of the portrait is a rocky coastline and upon the cliff is a round object with cracks and a large hole, a flock of swallows flying inside. In keeping with Dali’s known portrait symbolism, the birds most likely stand for Hinrichs’ love of classical music, and as such, it is tempting to read the round, hollow structure as a concert hall or an abstract depiction of opera itself.
Bust of Hans Hinrichs in Esens, Friesland, Germany. Author's collection
Portrait of Reinaldo Herrera, Marquis de Torre Casa, 1959.
Oil on canvas, 84 x 63.5 cm (33.07’ x 25.20’).
Private collection (Reinaldo and Carolina Herrera).
Oil on canvas, 84 x 63.5 cm (33.07’ x 25.20’).
Private collection (Reinaldo and Carolina Herrera).
One of the final commissions Dalí was to complete in the 1950s was Portrait of Reinaldo Herrera, Marquis de Torre Casa, a quirky, yet elegant portrait of the prominent Venezuelan financier, sugarcane plantation owner and marquis, Reinaldo Herrera Uslar (1910 – 1962). Herrera was married to Maria Teresa Herrera-Uslar (née Ladron de Guevara, 1914 -1992), the Marquesa de Torre Casa. Mimi, as she was known, was a philanthropist and author and a celebrated beauty partial to the creations of Christian Dior. A top-drawer socialite, she maintained an apartment in Manhattan and she and her husband rubbed shoulders with many of the rich and famous in Dalí’s orbit, including Iva Patcévitch, whose wife Dalí painted in 1948, and Celeste Owen-Cheatham, an avid collector of Dalí’s jewels.[66] The couple had two sons, Luis Felipe Herrera-Guevara, and the eldest, Reinaldo Herrera, who became the 5th Marqués of Torre Casa upon his father's death in 1962. The title was retracted, two decades later, however, as he had not produced a son. [67] The archetypal Latin playboy in his youth, Reinaldo Jr. later became a special project editor to Vanity Fair. In 1968 he married another Venezuelan native, fashion designer Carolina Herrera.
Descendants of one of the conquistadors of the valley of Caracas, the Herrera family were central to the history of the region. Their ancestral home, Casa La Vega, is believed to be the oldest inhabited dwelling in the Americas. Dating to 1590, the house was originally situated upon a thousand-acre hacienda, which was gradually sold off as the city expanded and modernized. In 1760 the Countess Maria Petronila de Tovar added to the property, and one of her ancestors, who was assassinated, is thought to haunt the halls. Restoration and additions were added throughout the twentieth century, and 1970, the estate was declared a National Historic Landmark. A newspaper article penned when Herrera senior was still a resident describes the Rolls Royce in the driveway, and rooms furnished with “priceless antiques, four-poster beds of rare woods, paintings and other objets d’art.”[68]
After it was painted, Dalí’s Portrait of Reinaldo Herrera was hung in the library of Casa La Vega. Federico Vegas, who wrote a book about the dwelling, reveals Dalí’s working method for the portrait. “The painting was ready after six years,” he explains, “during which Dalí made many sketches, incising with a silverpoint on thick paper prepared with a wash of Chinese white.” [69] Evidently the extended time the work took to complete may explain why Herrera, who was forty-nine when the portrait was completed, appears so youthful for his years. In fact, the “Smart Set” report in the New York Journal American, penned in September of 1960, a year after the work was signed, states that Dalí was still unhappy with the hands, and continued to work on them further. The writer paraphrases Herrera as saying that “if Dalí doesn’t hurry up he’ll have to do them over and add wrinkles.”[70]
Herrera’s portrait also features an unusually linear and uncluttered horizon, comprised of golden sand and punctuated by a few rocky hills, with a cloudy, bright blue sky above. As is typical, the artist has brushed in a few objects in the background, providing compositional scale and a sense of perspective. These include three spheres, familiar from his Surrealist lexicon, and his now standard rider on a white horse. As in Portrait of Arthur Herrington, the artist has placed his subject rather awkwardly to one side of the canvas. This provides room for the attribute that rests behind him: a ghostly eagle, hawk, or falcon, possibly intended to appear hewn from rock, despite the background being visible through it. This bird of prey may have had a specific meaning for Herrera, although as it conspicuously mimics the subject’s profile, it may simply be an allusion to what Dalí viewed was Herrera’s character or appearance.
Wearing a dark grey suit, with hands folded neatly in his lap, his hair pomaded to his temples, Herrera sits on a broken tree or chair with naturally-formed wooden roots or branches. Vegas gives an evocative description of this Surrealist-inspired object, as well as an interpretation of its meaning in the context of the Marquis’ station. “The dominant figure is the profile, imperious and immobile,” he writes,
of a man seated on a chair, rustic and ancestral, made of slightly-worked hardwood, of branches retaining their natural irregularities and joints from which new roots could issue; a wood that although old and rubbed smooth by other men who have sat upon it before, might send out new growth in a moment, or in a hundred years. . . .
For these reasons, the chair signifies the Marquis’s deep ancestral roots, he suggests. “It is the ‘original’ chair (original in the sense that it belongs to its origin); one needed to have delved very deep into the reality of the mundane to rest upon it with dignity, profound ease, comprehending in this chair and in this Casa a heritage.”[71]
Descendants of one of the conquistadors of the valley of Caracas, the Herrera family were central to the history of the region. Their ancestral home, Casa La Vega, is believed to be the oldest inhabited dwelling in the Americas. Dating to 1590, the house was originally situated upon a thousand-acre hacienda, which was gradually sold off as the city expanded and modernized. In 1760 the Countess Maria Petronila de Tovar added to the property, and one of her ancestors, who was assassinated, is thought to haunt the halls. Restoration and additions were added throughout the twentieth century, and 1970, the estate was declared a National Historic Landmark. A newspaper article penned when Herrera senior was still a resident describes the Rolls Royce in the driveway, and rooms furnished with “priceless antiques, four-poster beds of rare woods, paintings and other objets d’art.”[68]
After it was painted, Dalí’s Portrait of Reinaldo Herrera was hung in the library of Casa La Vega. Federico Vegas, who wrote a book about the dwelling, reveals Dalí’s working method for the portrait. “The painting was ready after six years,” he explains, “during which Dalí made many sketches, incising with a silverpoint on thick paper prepared with a wash of Chinese white.” [69] Evidently the extended time the work took to complete may explain why Herrera, who was forty-nine when the portrait was completed, appears so youthful for his years. In fact, the “Smart Set” report in the New York Journal American, penned in September of 1960, a year after the work was signed, states that Dalí was still unhappy with the hands, and continued to work on them further. The writer paraphrases Herrera as saying that “if Dalí doesn’t hurry up he’ll have to do them over and add wrinkles.”[70]
Herrera’s portrait also features an unusually linear and uncluttered horizon, comprised of golden sand and punctuated by a few rocky hills, with a cloudy, bright blue sky above. As is typical, the artist has brushed in a few objects in the background, providing compositional scale and a sense of perspective. These include three spheres, familiar from his Surrealist lexicon, and his now standard rider on a white horse. As in Portrait of Arthur Herrington, the artist has placed his subject rather awkwardly to one side of the canvas. This provides room for the attribute that rests behind him: a ghostly eagle, hawk, or falcon, possibly intended to appear hewn from rock, despite the background being visible through it. This bird of prey may have had a specific meaning for Herrera, although as it conspicuously mimics the subject’s profile, it may simply be an allusion to what Dalí viewed was Herrera’s character or appearance.
Wearing a dark grey suit, with hands folded neatly in his lap, his hair pomaded to his temples, Herrera sits on a broken tree or chair with naturally-formed wooden roots or branches. Vegas gives an evocative description of this Surrealist-inspired object, as well as an interpretation of its meaning in the context of the Marquis’ station. “The dominant figure is the profile, imperious and immobile,” he writes,
of a man seated on a chair, rustic and ancestral, made of slightly-worked hardwood, of branches retaining their natural irregularities and joints from which new roots could issue; a wood that although old and rubbed smooth by other men who have sat upon it before, might send out new growth in a moment, or in a hundred years. . . .
For these reasons, the chair signifies the Marquis’s deep ancestral roots, he suggests. “It is the ‘original’ chair (original in the sense that it belongs to its origin); one needed to have delved very deep into the reality of the mundane to rest upon it with dignity, profound ease, comprehending in this chair and in this Casa a heritage.”[71]
Fashion Designer Carolina Herrera at home with Portrait of Reinaldo Herrera,
Photo by Jonathan Becker, Domino magazine, September 2006.
Photo by Jonathan Becker, Domino magazine, September 2006.
This heritage carries on, and today the portrait belongs to Reinaldo Herrera’s eldest son and namesake and hangs in the New York home he shares with his wife, Carolina Herrera. In an interview at a 2009 Surrealist-themed event the latter sponsored at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the designer recalled of Dalí, “He painted my father-in-law, and I met him. It was fantastic.”[72]
Portrait of Alma Walker Coe and her Daughter, 1959.
Oil on canvas (30” x 40”).
Private collection, San Francisco.
Oil on canvas (30” x 40”).
Private collection, San Francisco.
In 1959 Dalí found himself painting yet another child, this time with her mother. The result was Portrait of Alma Walker Coe and her Daughter, an unusual twist to the conventional maternal portrait.
The mother in the painting is Alma Virginia Walker (1908–1971), a descendent of T.B. Walker, a lumber baron who started an important forest products company using timber from Minnesota and California. T.B. Walker was also interested in culture, and founded both the Minneapolis Public Library, and the Walker Art Centre in downtown Minneapolis. Alma was the daughter of Clinton L. Walker, T.B.’s fifth son, and Della Brooks.[73] In 1928 she married William Randolph Hearst Jr., the second son of the newspaper publisher and magnate. They divorced in 1932, and in 1941 she wed a second time, to attorney Chauncey McKeever, with whom she had Ann, her only child.[74] Divorced again in 1951, she remarried a third time to Jesse Coe, becoming Alma Walker Coe. In her later years, Alma lived at Pebble Beach, where she had earlier met Dalí during his exile at Monterey, and this is likely where the portrait was arranged. The contract survives in the Gala-Salvador Dalí archives, and states that the fee was $10,000, with $2,000 in advance. Signed by both Dalí and Alma (then Walker Coe) on July 19, 1958, the painting was completed the following year.[75]
Alma and her daughter spent time with the Dalis in Pebble Beach, as well Port Lligat, where they visited the artist and his wife for a month in the summer of 1959.[76] The Spanish location explains the distant mound in the portrait behind Alma, upon which is a Costa Brava tower that resembles the one Dalí had featured in his Portrait of Chester Dale and his Dog Coco, painted the year before in 1958. Ann has fond memories of the visit. “It was huge fun to run around the almond orchards and go fishing,” she remembers. “He was pretty nice to me and we got along fine,” although she observes that Salvador apparently thought of children as small adults, and offered her brandy at ten a.m. on their first visit to Dalí’s house. “We would sit for sessions and then have a meal. I always hated the barely cooked pigeon.” Gala, apparently “gave her masses of gifts at Christmas,” and Dalí, she reveals, “did not admit he spoke perfect English. He sort of mixed up Spanish, French, and made-up words. At eleven years old, I understood him quite well.”[77]
The mother in the painting is Alma Virginia Walker (1908–1971), a descendent of T.B. Walker, a lumber baron who started an important forest products company using timber from Minnesota and California. T.B. Walker was also interested in culture, and founded both the Minneapolis Public Library, and the Walker Art Centre in downtown Minneapolis. Alma was the daughter of Clinton L. Walker, T.B.’s fifth son, and Della Brooks.[73] In 1928 she married William Randolph Hearst Jr., the second son of the newspaper publisher and magnate. They divorced in 1932, and in 1941 she wed a second time, to attorney Chauncey McKeever, with whom she had Ann, her only child.[74] Divorced again in 1951, she remarried a third time to Jesse Coe, becoming Alma Walker Coe. In her later years, Alma lived at Pebble Beach, where she had earlier met Dalí during his exile at Monterey, and this is likely where the portrait was arranged. The contract survives in the Gala-Salvador Dalí archives, and states that the fee was $10,000, with $2,000 in advance. Signed by both Dalí and Alma (then Walker Coe) on July 19, 1958, the painting was completed the following year.[75]
Alma and her daughter spent time with the Dalis in Pebble Beach, as well Port Lligat, where they visited the artist and his wife for a month in the summer of 1959.[76] The Spanish location explains the distant mound in the portrait behind Alma, upon which is a Costa Brava tower that resembles the one Dalí had featured in his Portrait of Chester Dale and his Dog Coco, painted the year before in 1958. Ann has fond memories of the visit. “It was huge fun to run around the almond orchards and go fishing,” she remembers. “He was pretty nice to me and we got along fine,” although she observes that Salvador apparently thought of children as small adults, and offered her brandy at ten a.m. on their first visit to Dalí’s house. “We would sit for sessions and then have a meal. I always hated the barely cooked pigeon.” Gala, apparently “gave her masses of gifts at Christmas,” and Dalí, she reveals, “did not admit he spoke perfect English. He sort of mixed up Spanish, French, and made-up words. At eleven years old, I understood him quite well.”[77]
Ann appears in the portrait at the age of about eleven, donning a white bathing suit and sandals. She stands on the far left of the canvas, with one foot toward her mother, leg outstretched, while her face and the rest of her body are turned toward her field of vision outside the canvas. Alma, in her early fifties, sits upon a tree stump to the right, and near her upon the ground rests a single snail’s shell. Barefoot, Alma is wrapped in one of Dalí’s bedsheets (the same one, Ann recalls, that the artist used for his Portrait of Sir James Dunn the year before), and has one shoulder exposed in the style of a Roman toga. This classicizing gesture is undermined, however, by Alma’s mid-twentieth century haircut and Ann’s contemporary clothing.
Mother-child portraits are traditionally staged as testaments to the maternal bond, of childhood innocence and familial warmth. The artist has done just the opposite here, with Ann’s outward gaze and rather tense body language suggesting a desire for distance from her mother, rather than refuge in Alma’s loving protection. Likewise, instead of tender glances, Alma’s stern expression, directed toward the viewer, conveys mild irritation or disapproval. The atmosphere of estrangement is further reinforced by the expanse of barren Catalonian beach between them, and a dark cloud that hovers over the little girl. As journalist Zahid Sardar observes about the work, “her mother was a brooding woman, while Hatch, who was barely twelve when Salvador Dalí painted the pair, was already breaking free from her family’s hold.”[78]
Dalí, who was an incisive judge of character and relationships, included in Alma’s hands one of his oft-used carnations, this time white, with the traditional connotation of innocence. But despite possessing this virtue, Alma has also been described as a “terror,” in some ways. Perhaps referring to both aspects of her character, the artist depicts her holding this delicate flower like a switch. Indeed, while the child enjoyed the Dalís’ hospitality, it seems things were less congenial between Ann and her mother. When the portrait was finished, she explains, “my mother had had it with me,” and suggested she stay with her cousins in Boston. “[It] was clear to me from early on,” she continues, “that I needed to make my own way, and I did at the age of about thirteen.”[79]
Mother-child portraits are traditionally staged as testaments to the maternal bond, of childhood innocence and familial warmth. The artist has done just the opposite here, with Ann’s outward gaze and rather tense body language suggesting a desire for distance from her mother, rather than refuge in Alma’s loving protection. Likewise, instead of tender glances, Alma’s stern expression, directed toward the viewer, conveys mild irritation or disapproval. The atmosphere of estrangement is further reinforced by the expanse of barren Catalonian beach between them, and a dark cloud that hovers over the little girl. As journalist Zahid Sardar observes about the work, “her mother was a brooding woman, while Hatch, who was barely twelve when Salvador Dalí painted the pair, was already breaking free from her family’s hold.”[78]
Dalí, who was an incisive judge of character and relationships, included in Alma’s hands one of his oft-used carnations, this time white, with the traditional connotation of innocence. But despite possessing this virtue, Alma has also been described as a “terror,” in some ways. Perhaps referring to both aspects of her character, the artist depicts her holding this delicate flower like a switch. Indeed, while the child enjoyed the Dalís’ hospitality, it seems things were less congenial between Ann and her mother. When the portrait was finished, she explains, “my mother had had it with me,” and suggested she stay with her cousins in Boston. “[It] was clear to me from early on,” she continues, “that I needed to make my own way, and I did at the age of about thirteen.”[79]
ENDNOTES
[1] Enid Nemy, “C. Z. Guest, Society Royalty, Dies at 83,” The New York Times, November 9, 2003, accessed February 14, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/nyregion/09GUES.html?pagewanted=1https://www.google.ca/.
[2] Staff writer, “C.Z. Guest,” In Memoriam 11/10/03, New York Social Diary, accessed Feb. 15, 2015, http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/legacy/list/im/113im.php; Nemy, “C. Z. Guest, Society Royalty, Dies at 83.”
[3] As quoted in Nemy, “C. Z. Guest, Society Royalty, Dies at 83.”
[4] Lynn Hirschberg “To the Manor Born,” The New York Times Magazine, August 19, 2001, accessed February 15, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/19/magazine/to-the-manor-born.html?pagewanted=1
[5] Shearer West, Portraiture (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 73.
[6] Hamptonstyle, Dan’s Papers, May 9, 2008, accessed January 12, 2011,
http://www.danshamptons.com/content/hamptonstyle/2008/may_09/08a.html. Dan’s Hamptons.com.
[7] Nemy, “C. Z. Guest, Society Royalty, Dies at 83.”
[8] Staff writer, interview with the Duchess of Windsor, The Australian Women's Weekly, April 12, 1961, N13
[9] Bob Morris, “A Debutante Grows Up,” Fashion and Style, The New York Times, August 17, 2012, accessed February 15, 2015, available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/fashion/cornelia-guest-leaves-the-debutante-life-behind.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
[10] Dali, Diary of a Genius, 177.
[11] Lynn Hirschberg “To the Manor Born.”
[12] Craig Unger, “The Heiress,” New York Magazine, June 27, 1983, 24.
[13] Unger, “The Heiress,” 24.
[14] This was one of a number of pieces of jewellery that Harkness bequeathed to the White House, to be worn by First Ladies when they were in residence. See Unger, 34.
[15] Fundació Gala-Salvador Dali, Dali's Jewels, exh. cat. (Tourin, London, Venice: Umberto Allemandi & Co., 2001), 102.
[16] Unger, “The Heiress,” 29. The urn has since been purchased by the Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation in Figueres, and is on permanent display at the museum there.
[17] Josep Postius and Luis Romero, Aquel Dalí (Barcelona: Editorial Argos Vergara, 1984), 118-121.
[18] Portrait contract between Dali and Mrs. Rebekah Harkness Kean, dated March 20, 1962, the Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation Archives.
[19] Craig Unger, Blue Blood: The True Story of Rebekah Harkness (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989), 20.
[20] Unger, Blue Blood, 186.
[21] Unger, Blue Blood, 26.
[22] Riverhead N.Y. ND News-Review, July 31, 1958, n.p.
[23] Unidentified newspaper clipping, dated February 13, 1961; Unger, “The Heiress,” 24.
[24] Unger, Blue Blood, 76.
[25] Staff writer, ND News and Review, n.p; Unger, “The Heiress,” 34.
[26] Unger, “The Heiress,” 24.
[27] Conley “Chester Dale Collection”; “Chester Dale,” Founding Benefactors of the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art website, accessed May 10, 2013, http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/ggfound/ggfound-30743.html
[28] “Chester Dale,” Founding Benefactors of the National Gallery of Art.
[29] Kevin Conley “Chester Dale Collection makes a strong showing in National Gallery exhibit,” The Washington Post, Tuesday, February 2, 2010, accessed April 15, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/01/AR2010020102045.html.
[30] E-mail correspondence between Nancy H. Yeide, Head, Department of Curatorial Records, National Gallery of Art, and Julia Pine, 27, 2011; Etherington-Smith, The Persistence of Memory, 339.
[31] Etherington-Smith, The Persistence of Memory, 339.
[32] National Gallery Art, Press Release for the exhibition From Impressionism To Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection, September 11, 2009, accessed October 4, 2015, http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/press/exh/3063.html. While Dale’s second wife was not particularly fond of Dalí’s style, she told writer Paul Chimera that she found Dalí himself charming, and considered the portrait of her husband to be “a corking good picture!” Paul Chimera, “Dale on Dalí: ‘Corking Good!,’” in Meeting Dalí!: Encounters with Salvador Dalí, blog, Friday, January 16, 2009, http://meetingDalí.blogspot.com/2009/01/dale-on-Dalí-corking-good.html.
[33] Descharnes, The World of Salvador Dalí, 190.
[34] Michael Bliss, “Bliss on Books,” Report on Business Magazine, July/August 1985, 87.
[35] Robin Gibson, Painting the Century: 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900-2000, National Portrait Gallery Publications (London: June 2000), 155.
[36] November 30, 1956, sent to Dalí from the Algoma Steel Corporation headquarters. The French text reads, “Lady Dunn désire surtout que le portrait soit exécuté dans la lumière douce et vive du soleil d’Espagne et pas dans les ténèbres d’un hôtel a New York.” The Gala-Salvador Dalí archives, artist’s correspondance records.
[37] Letter from Lady Dunn to Dalí, dated 10 September, 1958, The Gala-Salvador Dalí archives.
[38] Beaverbrook Art Gallery, From Sickert to Dalí: International Portraits (Fredericton: The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, 1976), Catalogue section, n.p. Here the work is listed as such: “Replica of ‘Into the Sunrise’ (Dalí). Was executed by Dalí for the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.”
[39] Letter from Lady Dunn to Dalí, dated 10 September, 1958, The Gala-Salvador Dalí archives.
[40] Lord Beaverbrook, Courage, 249-50.
[41] Beaverbrook Art Gallery Catalogue Information Sheet, “Background” section, 1979, 5. In the notes, it reads “A replica of this work is owned by Lady Dunn (now Lady Beaverbrook).”
[42] Jack Best, “Salvador Dalí’s Madonna added to Dunn collection,” The Ottawa Citizen, February 28, 1955, 17.
[43] J. M. Howe, “Herrington Portrait is Completed by Dali,” Indianapolis Star, 1958, n.p.
[44] Anon., “Arthur William Sidney Herrington,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed Feb. 3, 2015, http://www.Britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/263773/Arthur-William-Sidney-Herrington; staff writer, “History of Innovation,” Marmon-Herrington website, accessed Feb. 3, 2015, https://www.marmon-herrington.com/about/history.php.
[45] “Mrs. Nell Herrington,” Obituary, The Danville Register (Danville, Virginia), Tuesday, April 26, 1966, 13. Accessed Feb. 3, 2015, http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/6254344/.
[46] See Arthur William Sidney, The collection of Mr. and Mrs. A.W.S. Herrington of Indianapolis, Indiana: European and American paintings and graphic art; European, American and Oriental decorative arts; an exhibition, exh. cat., Krannert Art Museum, College of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Illinois, 1964; Art Association of Indianapolis, The Nell Clarke Herrington Memorial Exhibition, exh. cat., Herron Museum of Art, Indianapolis, 1968, 11.
[47] Telephone interview with Arthur Clarke Herrington by Julia Pine, Feb. 17, 2015.
[48] Staff writer, “A Gift to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection,” Jack Twarkov dedicated website, May 20, 2014. Accessed February 22, 2015, http://jacktworkov.com/2014/05/a-gift-to-the-peggy-guggenheim-collection/.
[49] Telephone interview with Arthur Clarke Herrington by Julia Pine, Feb. 17, 2015.
[50] Known since antiquity, the Platonic solids are regular, convex polyhedrons (meaning “many faceted”), which have congruent faces of regular polygons, and the same number of faces meeting at each vertex.
[51] Telephone interview with Arthur Clarke Herrington by Julia Pine, Feb. 17, 2015.
[52] Eric Pace, “John L. Loeb Sr. Dies at 94; Investor and Philanthropist,” obituary, International New York Times, December 9, 1996, accessed May 25, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/09/nyregion/john-l-loeb-sr-dies-at-94-investor-and-philanthropist.html?pagewanted=1.
[53] “Harvard Benefactor and Friend John Loeb Dies at 94,” obituary, The Harvard University Gazette, December 12, 1996, accessed April 15, 2015, http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1996/12.12/HarvardBenefact.html.
[54] Stephen Birmingham, “Our Crowd”: Jewish families of New York (Harper and Row, 1967), 379.
[55] Pace, John L. Loeb Sr. Dies at 94, International New York Times.
[56] Julien Levy, Memoir of an Art Gallery (New York: G.P. Putnam and Sons, 1977), 208 – 210.
[57] Birmingham, “Our Crowd,” 379.
[58] F.M., "HANS II", Opera News; March 2, 1959, 32 - 33
[59] Otto Spengler, Das deutsche Element der Stadt New York: Biographisches Jahrbuch der Deutsch-Amerikaner New Yorks und Umgebung (New York, 1913)
[60] F.M., "HANS II", 32
[61] Thomas H. Lineaweaver, "Xiphias the Swordfish", Sports Illustrated, July 28, 1958, 58. The same issue also contains the article "Presenting the Costa Brava" with a photograph of Dalí.
[62] F.M., "HANS II", 33
[63] Detlef Kiesé, "Hajo Hans Hinrichs. Ehrenbürger in Esens", May 6, 2012
[64] F.M., "HANS II", 33
[65] Obituary, The New York Times, November 1, 1998, 47
[66] “Reinaldo Herrera y Uslar, IV Marqués de Torre Casa,” www. Geni.com, accessed Feb. 26, 2015, http://www.geni.com/people/Reinaldo-Herrera-y-Uslar/6000000008935036222; Staff writer, Palm Beach Daily News, January 4, 1970, n.p.; staff writer, “Maria Herrera-Uslar; Society Figure Was 78,” obituary, New York Times, December 28, 1992, accessed Feb. 26, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/28/obituaries/maria-herrera-uslar-society-figure-was-78.html.
[67] Ministerio de Justica, “Gobierno De Espana, Agencia Estatal Boletin Oficial del Estado - Order 26340,” Boletín Official del Estado, November 27, 1992, accessed April 15, 2015, http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/1992/11/27/pdfs/A40400-40400.pdf.
[68] Claire Cox, “Venezuelan Home Oldest in America,” Independent Star-News, Pasadena, July 3, 1962, n.p.
[69] Federico Vegas, La Vega: A Colonial Casa (Caracas: Ernesto Armitano, 1988), 117.
[70] Cholly Knickerbocker, “Poor Tony May be ‘Kilt’ for This One,” Smart Set, New York Journal American, September 23, 1960, n.p.
[71] Vegas, La Vega, 117.
[72] Darrell Hartman, “Dali Good: Gowns and Gilded Excess at the Apollo Circle Gala,” Parties section, Style.com, retrieved Feb. 26, 2015, available at: http://www.style.com/peopleparties/parties/scoop/newyork-111309_Apollo_Circle_Benefit/.
[73] “T.B. Walker and Family: An Inventory of their Papers at the Minnesota Historical Society,” Minnesota Historical Society online, accessed Feb. 16, 2015, http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00093.xml.
[74] Staff writer, The Evening News, San Jose California, Thursday, May 26, 1932, n.p.
[75] Salvador Dalí’s personal correspondence, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation archives, Figueres, Spain.
[76] E-mail correspondence between Ann Hatch and Julia Pine, March 1, 2015; Richard Whittaker, “A Conversation with Ann Hatch: Making a Place for Art,” Works & Conversations Magazine, Jan 13, 2003, accessed Feb. 16, 2015, http://www.conversations.org/story.php?sid=63.
[77] Rachel Corbett, “San Francisco Patron Ann Hatch on Collecting Art, and Growing Up With Dalí,” Artspace magazine, June 20, 2013, accessed February 16, 2015, available at:
http://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/ann_hatch.
[78] Zahid Sardar, San Francisco Modern: Interiors, Architecture and Design (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998), 23.
[79] Whittaker, “A Conversation with Ann Hatch.”
