But to commission a portrait by Salvador Dalí? That takes a certain dark
humour, a certain self awareness and a certain backbone, and a certain taste for risk
— well, it takes a gambler. Or an icon.
— Susie Kahlich, Artipoeus, June 28, 2017
humour, a certain self awareness and a certain backbone, and a certain taste for risk
— well, it takes a gambler. Or an icon.
— Susie Kahlich, Artipoeus, June 28, 2017
When we think of the Spanish painter Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), we inevitably think of Surrealist canvases, eccentric public appearances, melting watches and, to be sure, the artist’s famous handlebar moustache. Seldom do we think of portraiture. Yet despite appearances, Salvador Dalí was in fact a prolific portrait painter, producing numerous self-portraits, likenesses of his friends and family, of his beloved wife Gala, and of those within his immediate circle. “Even as a child,” wrote Dalí biographer Fleur Cowles, “he was never able to resist the urge to paint the people around him.”[1] Few people are aware that as the artist's career progressed, behind the scenes of his highly publicized and eccentrically performed life, Dalí turned his penchant for portraiture into a lucrative sideline, producing often surprisingly conventional “society” portraits for wealthy American, Canadian and South American nationals, as well as a small number of well-heeled foreigners living in the United States.
Remarkably, although thousands of books and articles have been published on the subject of Dalí and his art, not a single book and barely a contemporary scholarly article has, to our knowledge, been written solely about the whole of Dalí’s society portraits. Biographers have also largely overlooked this important aspect of the artist’s work. One does find the occasional account or amusing anecdote about Dalí painting a wealthy American or European émigré, but Cowles is perhaps the only one to fully acknowledge how significant a role society portraiture played in Dalí’s career. This was no doubt due to the fact that she was American herself, lived in New York, and knew and worked with Dalí mid-century when this aspect of his corpus was at the fore.
Despite this missing link in Dalí scholarship, between 1933 and the early-1970s, the artist consistently produced approximately two to five portraits of American subjects almost every year, secured by contracts and based on a hefty and every-increasing pay scale. This “sideline” took up a considerable amount of the artist’s time over four decades, resulting in almost seventy known American portraits. It also ensured Dalí ongoing and prominent coverage in newspapers and magazines of the day, and of course, gave him the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the wealthiest and most prominent citizens of what he consistently described as the “New World.” Most importantly, especially in the lean early years, it provided a steady income that allowed Dalí to focus on other creative pursuits. As he told a French newspaper in 1952, he painted rich people’s portraits because “they help me pay my grocery bills.”[2]
Dalí’s American Portraits, 1933 - 1973 strives to carve a place for Dalí’s American society portraiture in the otherwise voluminous body of critical and biographical literature related to the artist. For the most part, the few individual pieces that have been written about are often poorly documented, misidentified, or the subject remains obscure or anonymous. To remedy this, we aim to provide a comprehensive catalogue that will inform the understanding and enjoyment of the individual works, and to reveal patterns and tendencies in Dalí’s visual lexicon, while elucidating his unique critical approach to the genre of society portraiture. Specifically, we aim to position Dalí’s portrait painting sideline in terms of his career, and where possible to document the subjects, symbolism and conditions of the making of individual commissions.
While our intention has been to catalogue Dalí’s American society portraits, we also want to propose a view of these works as far more than Freudian-tinged extensions of his Surrealist-era work of the 1920s and ‘30s. Or, as some view them, as simply money-making commissions churned out in traditional formats with a dollop of Dalinian whimsy. Instead we seek to unpack the artist’s complex and highly personal approach to society portraiture. Ultimately, we suggest that Dalí’s works in this genre are not best evaluated according the presumed standards of traditional society portraiture, which is conventionally intended to flatter and dignify the subject. Instead, we encourage a reading of Dalí’s American portraits as highly incisive character studies that range from the reverential and visually striking, to meticulously painted caricatures that can be supremely subtle or outright excoriating.
As Dalí’s portraits were central to many of his relationships with notable and powerful Americans, this website attempts not only to shed light upon an important aspect of Dalí’s career history, but also to add to the more general history of art and society in America. Together these works offer a continuous visual narrative of Dalí’s progress as a portraitist, and a fascinating glimpse into the lives, foibles and preoccupations of America’s mid-century élite, to which the artist had privileged access. As it turns out, this is a surprisingly lively and entertaining narrative, and as you are about to discover, the story of Dalí’s American society portraits is a story of paintings that were proudly displayed in people’s homes and private galleries, but also of works that were rejected, painted over, hidden in closets, stolen, litigated against, publicly ridiculed, and even, in one case, shot at with a gun. While many of Dalí’s American subjects led quiet, conservative lives, digging deeper one finds a truly surreal tale of cuckolded husbands, masterpieces discovered in charity shops, scandalous court cases, threatened voodoo spells, murderous wives, and children in birdcages.
While perplexing, the historical and critical oversight regarding Dalí’s portraits may have something to do with their inaccessibility, as a significant number still hang in stately family homes, are held in private collections, or are owned by museums and galleries in countries less accessible to American and European writers or curators. Another reason has perhaps to do with the popular and scholarly disinclination toward academic art in the latter half of the twentieth century, including conventional society portraiture. As portrait historian Richard Ormond puts it, the genre has been “discarded in the story of modern painting,” an act he believes has distorted the history of art. “It is viewed as something conservative and old-fashioned, commercially-oriented and not truly creative,” he argues, it being anathema to formalist, modernist criteria, which traditionally focused on process and abstraction rather than time-honoured techniques and mimesis. “A portrait,” he continues, “implies a contract between artist and sitter, which is at odds with the concept of creative independence and integrity.”[3]
Later in his career Dalí himself seems to have corroborated this view. By the 1970s, when he was making so much money he no longer needed the income his portrait commissions afforded him, he seemed content to relegate this body of work to obscurity. Reynolds Morse, co-founder with his wife Eleanor of the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, and a Dalí scholar in his own right, recalled that he had planned a short, privately-published book on Dalí’s portraiture. “I told him that another vital project was a list of his portraits,” he writes, noting that Dalí’s response was that he felt these works were compromised by capitulation to his patrons’ wishes, and were too mercantile in character to warrant cataloguing. Transcribed phonetically by Morse to highlight Dalí’s eccentric conflation of French and English (neither of which was his native tongue), his exact words were,
Is no so interesting, les portraits, parceque quand is pose, myself eez always forced make les concessions. Et is necessary change le nose ou le eye-ee pour please le clee-ant. Is necessary, mais in any way is also changing le character of le verk, et is no reveal que (what) . . . Dalí is see exactly. . . Is too co-mer-ci-al les portraits et now myself is not make any more.[4]
Panel from “Private Lives” cartoon strip, The Brooklyn Eagle, February 10, 1946.
Syracuse University Art Collection, Syracuse (New York)
© The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation. All rights reserved
COVA-DAAV permissions pending.
Syracuse University Art Collection, Syracuse (New York)
© The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation. All rights reserved
COVA-DAAV permissions pending.
The definition of the word portrait used in this study begins with that of portrait historian Shearer West, which he describes as “a work of art that represents a unique individual.”[5] Here we consider a specific genre of portraiture, known as the “society portrait,” referring to a status object traditionally displayed by wealthy families or individuals, intended as a reflection of the subject’s social standing, connections, wealth and occasionally fame, beauty or accomplishment. Instead of being painted by friends or acquaintances, society portraits are defined here as works commissioned from professional artists, usually intended for private use, and customarily to be hung in the client’s home or institution. This eliminates images of imagined people or fictitious characters, to which we have added “fan” portraits, wherein the artist works, for example, from photographs of a famous figure, or for the purpose of publicity. Dalí did in fact create a number of likenesses of Americans that fit this category, including works featuring images of Mae West, Shirley Temple, Marilyn Monroe and Alice Cooper, but these were more along the lines of meditations, and were not directly commissioned by the subjects or intended for their use. Compared to the “creative work” inspired by the imagination and emotions of the artist, as much modern and contemporary painting is assumed to be, conventional society portraits are for the most part formulaic and highly staged, and painted in consultation with the patron who might dictate some of the contents of the work. Naturally, the expected outcome of the society portrait is that it will flatter, dignify or exalt the subject.
This website focuses solely on portraits that fit this criteria, and specifically of Americans who were painted abroad, or of individuals of any nationality who were living — at least a good part of their time when their portraits were captured — in the United States. Encompassed in this definition are subjects from the Americas, including several Canadians, and persons from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. These paintings and drawings, we believe, form a discreet category of Dalí’s portraiture, the “society” here being primarily made up of those who had attained the “American Dream”; nouveau riches who often came from humble circumstances, and were frequently immigrants or from immigrant families. They largely include wealthy bankers, industrialists and mining moguls, as well as their wives and immediate families. Dalí was also commissioned by some notable entrepreneurial and accomplished women, among them Helena Rubinstein and Lydia O’Leary, who made their fortunes building cosmetics empires, American health activist Mary Lasker, opera singer Claire Dux and film actress and author Luli Deste (later Kollsman).
Particularly in the 1950s, Dalí ventured into the territory of “old” American money, such as that of the Jewish-American Loeb family, with roots going back to colonial times; WASP blue bloods, like the Winston-Guests; and American “aristocracy” like the Drexels of Philadelphia. There were also many wealthy European or Asian émigrés and expatriates living in America, having fled the dangers brought about by WWII, or being required to move for reasons of business, or through marriage with an American. These include well-heeled and sometimes titled individuals from England, France, Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Georgia, Russia, and China. Such people were often familiar with experimental European art, and likely knew Dalí personally, or by reputation in Paris and Spain. Especially during the war years, they were also more inclined to help out a fellow exile through a lucrative portrait commission.
This website focuses solely on portraits that fit this criteria, and specifically of Americans who were painted abroad, or of individuals of any nationality who were living — at least a good part of their time when their portraits were captured — in the United States. Encompassed in this definition are subjects from the Americas, including several Canadians, and persons from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. These paintings and drawings, we believe, form a discreet category of Dalí’s portraiture, the “society” here being primarily made up of those who had attained the “American Dream”; nouveau riches who often came from humble circumstances, and were frequently immigrants or from immigrant families. They largely include wealthy bankers, industrialists and mining moguls, as well as their wives and immediate families. Dalí was also commissioned by some notable entrepreneurial and accomplished women, among them Helena Rubinstein and Lydia O’Leary, who made their fortunes building cosmetics empires, American health activist Mary Lasker, opera singer Claire Dux and film actress and author Luli Deste (later Kollsman).
Particularly in the 1950s, Dalí ventured into the territory of “old” American money, such as that of the Jewish-American Loeb family, with roots going back to colonial times; WASP blue bloods, like the Winston-Guests; and American “aristocracy” like the Drexels of Philadelphia. There were also many wealthy European or Asian émigrés and expatriates living in America, having fled the dangers brought about by WWII, or being required to move for reasons of business, or through marriage with an American. These include well-heeled and sometimes titled individuals from England, France, Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Georgia, Russia, and China. Such people were often familiar with experimental European art, and likely knew Dalí personally, or by reputation in Paris and Spain. Especially during the war years, they were also more inclined to help out a fellow exile through a lucrative portrait commission.
Rob Robertson, "Dalí pinta millonarias", fotos, October 18, 1952, n.p. .
In America, ideas about modern art flowing over the Atlantic from Europe were still very new and were initially treated quite suspiciously or with ridicule by “mainstream” America. While many of Dalí’s American-born clients were comfortable with modern art of the time, including Surrealism (at least as it manifested in its unique way in the U.S.), just as many engaged Dalí’s services because they viewed him as an artist capable of painting in a traditional manner. These were the clients who were eager to adopt the taste and trappings of European old money and aristocracy, including conventional, academic-style painting and portraiture. Reading Dalí’s 1942 autobiography The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, which he penned while in exile during WWII, it is plain the artist was well aware of America’s then-fashionable penchant for the antique and time-worn trappings of old Europe. Describing his first visit to the U.S. in the mid-1930s, Dalí writes of his astonishment upon realizing that New York was not the gleaming, streamlined high-tech mecca he had been led to believe in Paris, where the Big Apple, and America in general, was held up as a paragon of innovation and modernity. “No, New York was not a modern city,” he wrote. “For having been so at the beginning, before any other city, it now on the contrary already had a horror of this.”
He goes on to write about his visits to the homes of wealthy and fashionable people, among them no doubt portrait subjects Mrs. Harrison Williams and Helena Rubinstein, and how at every turn he found attempts to appear “Old World European.” Beginning with his discovery that expensive apartments had electric elevators lit by candles, he writes that “everywhere the electric light was choked by Louis XVI skirts, by Gothic polychrome parchment manuscripts, by manuscript partitions of Beethoven serving as lampshades.” Further, “One had the impression that artificial ivy grew in all corners of the woodwork, and that bats, equally artificial, and invisible, were constantly flitting through the propitious darkness of the halls.”[6] Most vividly, he describes an “astonishing” motion picture “temple” he visited. “It was decorated with the most diverse artistic bronzes, from the Victory of Samothrace to Carpeaux; with ultra-anecdotic pictures really painted in oil, framed with an oppressive fantasy of gold molding.” In the middle of this, he continues, “one suddenly perceived the plumes of a playing fountain illuminated with the whole iridescent rainbow of bad taste.”[7] To Dalí’s European eye, accustomed to ancient landmarks, centuries-old family estates and authentic aristocratic furnishings, this ersatz antiquity was all too fantastic and ludicrous.
In keeping with America’s hankering for things historical, beginning in the late 1930s, society portraiture became all the rage in America. Indeed, no well-appointed home of the nouveau well-to-do was complete without an impressively-painted likeness of the would-be lord or lady of the manor, in emulation of those found in stately European homes. This created a lucrative market for portrait painters, and evidently thanks to his painting a number of notable figures in the late 1920s and 1930s, Dalí was singled out as one of a few prominent European painters available in America who would be a savvy and prestigious choice for a commission.
In 1939 American Vogue published a twelve-month series called “Portrait-Painters of To-Day,” billed as “A series inspired by the question: Who could paint a good portrait of my wife?” “It is certain that American men of position and means are more and more bent upon seeing their wives, mothers, or daughters immortalized in paint,” it read. “Indeed, the question, ‘Who could paint a good portrait of my wife?’ has so persistently been asked that the preparation of this series was virtually inevitable.”[8] The article listed numerous painters, including notable moderns, worthy of commissions, lamenting that “America has produced no master of anything like the first order in so-called fashionable portraiture,” although they name a number of American artists who “might do” in a pinch. Noting that the “great masters in the world’s art – Picasso, Matisse, Derain, Bonnard, Segonzac, Dufy, Rouault, Soutine – are very seldom willing to accept portrait commissions,” they suggest others in Paris who might be willing, but note, “there are other well-known Parisian masters who usually spend a season in New York,” and list Dietz Edzard, Pavel Tchelitchew, Raymond Kanelba, Jean Oberlé, Suzanne Eisendieck, and Salvador Dalí.[9]
Arriving the year after Vogue’s article, as exiles from the war in Europe, Dalí and Gala called America home for the next eight years. Unceremoniously ousted from the Surrealist movement the previous year, faced with a completely new market and climate for his work, and conscious that his art was selling very slowly during wartime, Dalí immediately realized that he was going to have to try a new direction if he wanted to make a decent living as an artist in America. During his exile, Dalí in fact expanded his work in many directions, including advertising, set design, writing ballets, illustrating books and, of course, tapping into U.S. society’s growing fervor for portraiture. The latter was a practical move, as biographer Meredith Etherington-Smith notes, during wartime, “his big pictures were not selling and, as he admitted . . . he did not want to paint a big picture unless the sale of it was already guaranteed. The portraits were all guaranteed.”[10]
He goes on to write about his visits to the homes of wealthy and fashionable people, among them no doubt portrait subjects Mrs. Harrison Williams and Helena Rubinstein, and how at every turn he found attempts to appear “Old World European.” Beginning with his discovery that expensive apartments had electric elevators lit by candles, he writes that “everywhere the electric light was choked by Louis XVI skirts, by Gothic polychrome parchment manuscripts, by manuscript partitions of Beethoven serving as lampshades.” Further, “One had the impression that artificial ivy grew in all corners of the woodwork, and that bats, equally artificial, and invisible, were constantly flitting through the propitious darkness of the halls.”[6] Most vividly, he describes an “astonishing” motion picture “temple” he visited. “It was decorated with the most diverse artistic bronzes, from the Victory of Samothrace to Carpeaux; with ultra-anecdotic pictures really painted in oil, framed with an oppressive fantasy of gold molding.” In the middle of this, he continues, “one suddenly perceived the plumes of a playing fountain illuminated with the whole iridescent rainbow of bad taste.”[7] To Dalí’s European eye, accustomed to ancient landmarks, centuries-old family estates and authentic aristocratic furnishings, this ersatz antiquity was all too fantastic and ludicrous.
In keeping with America’s hankering for things historical, beginning in the late 1930s, society portraiture became all the rage in America. Indeed, no well-appointed home of the nouveau well-to-do was complete without an impressively-painted likeness of the would-be lord or lady of the manor, in emulation of those found in stately European homes. This created a lucrative market for portrait painters, and evidently thanks to his painting a number of notable figures in the late 1920s and 1930s, Dalí was singled out as one of a few prominent European painters available in America who would be a savvy and prestigious choice for a commission.
In 1939 American Vogue published a twelve-month series called “Portrait-Painters of To-Day,” billed as “A series inspired by the question: Who could paint a good portrait of my wife?” “It is certain that American men of position and means are more and more bent upon seeing their wives, mothers, or daughters immortalized in paint,” it read. “Indeed, the question, ‘Who could paint a good portrait of my wife?’ has so persistently been asked that the preparation of this series was virtually inevitable.”[8] The article listed numerous painters, including notable moderns, worthy of commissions, lamenting that “America has produced no master of anything like the first order in so-called fashionable portraiture,” although they name a number of American artists who “might do” in a pinch. Noting that the “great masters in the world’s art – Picasso, Matisse, Derain, Bonnard, Segonzac, Dufy, Rouault, Soutine – are very seldom willing to accept portrait commissions,” they suggest others in Paris who might be willing, but note, “there are other well-known Parisian masters who usually spend a season in New York,” and list Dietz Edzard, Pavel Tchelitchew, Raymond Kanelba, Jean Oberlé, Suzanne Eisendieck, and Salvador Dalí.[9]
Arriving the year after Vogue’s article, as exiles from the war in Europe, Dalí and Gala called America home for the next eight years. Unceremoniously ousted from the Surrealist movement the previous year, faced with a completely new market and climate for his work, and conscious that his art was selling very slowly during wartime, Dalí immediately realized that he was going to have to try a new direction if he wanted to make a decent living as an artist in America. During his exile, Dalí in fact expanded his work in many directions, including advertising, set design, writing ballets, illustrating books and, of course, tapping into U.S. society’s growing fervor for portraiture. The latter was a practical move, as biographer Meredith Etherington-Smith notes, during wartime, “his big pictures were not selling and, as he admitted . . . he did not want to paint a big picture unless the sale of it was already guaranteed. The portraits were all guaranteed.”[10]
Dalí inspecting Antonello da Messina’s Portrait of a Man (Trivulzio portrait), 1476,
at the Museo Civico, Turin, Italy in 1953.
Author's collection.
at the Museo Civico, Turin, Italy in 1953.
Author's collection.
In a loud and clear bid to pander to the needs of the rich and powerful, in the early 1940s Dalí attempted to “reinvent” himself, shaking off the now outmoded moniker of “Surrealist,” and billing himself as a “classic” artist who painted in the academic style of the Old Masters. This he announced at a highly publicized solo exhibition in the spring of 1941 that also included a small selection of portraits, held at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York and later shown in Chicago and Los Angeles. Pronouncing modern art officially dead, he writes “Finished, finished, finished, a thousand times finished — the experimental epoch,” and reveals “Dalí himself, I repeat, finds the unique attitude toward his destiny: TO BECOME CLASSIC!”, a direction he further qualifies as “pursuing that research in Divina Proportione interrupted since the Renaissance.”[11] Despite the prolific use of capital letters, and insistence upon his new direction, Dalí’s new “classic” style in fact looked very much like his Surrealist style, where references to Freudian-style dream symbolism were replaced with imagery from classical antiquity and allusions to academic art.
Two years later, Dalí took this one step further, and announced that he was hanging out his shingle as a portrait painter for America’s high society. This was done via another exhibition, this time at Manhattan’s M. Knoedler and Company Gallery. Avidly covered by the press, critics were largely either perplexed by Dalí’s profusion of classical allusions, or disappointed by the stilted renderings of his subjects. Elsa Maxwell, whom Dalí was, ironically, to draw some years later, perhaps best summed up the critical opinion of Dalí’s portraits on show, writing,
In every instance he has reproduced them as serenely beautiful as they are in real life – but with no animation, personality, or thought behind their blank faces. He has made them all vacuous nonentities against backgrounds of lizards, rocks, deserts, clouds, and dreadful little oversexed cupids.[12]
Despite the critics finding much to dislike about the artist’s new direction, the show was extremely successful at bringing in future commissions. Dalí’s appeal in America had much to do with what Dalí scholar Dawn Ades describes as “the widely held opinion that he was an extraordinarily gifted painter technically, a brilliant draughtsman.” Dalí very successfully capitalized on this, realized that to an American audience raised with few examples of first-rate academic art, and surrounded by “Old World European” pastiches, his work appeared immensely impressive. “Perhaps,” Ades notes, “a comparatively commonplace academic technique borrowed from despised nineteenth-century masters is now unfamiliar enough to be dazzling. It is seldom recognized,” she adds, nevertheless, “that Dalí further twists it into an almost grotesque baroque mannerism, or manufactures it into a flat photographic realism.”[13]
This twisting and flattening of the Old Masters is certainly one of the hallmarks of Dalí’s portraits – at least of the 1940s and ‘50s. As part of his “classic” program, Dalí either incorporated well-known imagery from Renaissance, Baroque and classical art, such as the “oversexed cupids” to which Elsa Maxwell refers, as well as Greek columns, Roman architecture, and references to religious imagery like halos and his ubiquitous angels. More literally, in many cases he makes direct reference to specific works of art or artists, as in his homages to both Archimboldo and Piero della Francesca in his 1945 Portrait of Mrs. Isabel Styler-Tas, or his more subtle allusion to Raphael’s The Alba Madonna in his Portrait of Enid Haldorn of 1948. While such free and seemingly cavalier sampling of art history may seem like hackery to critics or art historians, a view of this approach as playful or reverential rather than pretentious offers insight into what sort of art and artists Dalí enjoyed, admired and sought to emulate.
It also adds considerable interest to the portraits, as sort of puzzles for the careful viewer, who is invited to spot Dalí’s allusions, and consider the reasoning behind them. The observer is challenged to question how they inform the work, what they mean in terms of Dalí’s opinion of his sitter, and what their implications might be to his greater body of work. How, for instance, does the stony, cracked window frame taken from the work of Gerrit Dou inform Dalí’s relationship with and estimation of the frosty Frances Drexel Munn? Or what political stance can be inferred by the two figures plucked directly from Diego Velazquez, Surrender of Breda which appear in the background of his 1943 portrait of Don Juan Cárdenas, Franco's Ambassador in the U.S. during WWII?
While Dalí seemed to be rather gleefully re-inventing himself as a “classic” painter, such capitulation to capitalist patrons and establishment ideals, and the profoundly traditional format of society portraiture itself, was a point of contention with Dalí’s former colleagues in the European avant-garde. The most vocal of these was poet and writer André Breton, the founder of the Surrealist movement. It was Breton who had vociferously ousted Dalí from the Surrealist ranks in 1939 for going in political and artistic directions he believed bucked Dalí’s former communist-leaning ideals and veered too close to supporting Spain’s new fascist dictator. In his Anthology of Black Humour, first published in 1940, Breton dismisses Dalí’s new direction completely and makes a firm distinction between the vanguard, left-leaning Surrealist Dalí, and the one “who disappeared in around 1935” only to reinvent himself as “the personality better known as Avida Dollars [Breton’s pun on “Greedy Dollars”], fashionable portraitist recently converted to the Catholic faith and to ‘the artistic ideals of the Renaissance.’”[14] These new turns, it should be stressed, were galling to the atheist, communist-leaning Breton, who was firmly rooted in the rhetoric of modernism and railed against what he described as “thinking” artists’ capitulation to the bourgeoisie and the world of commerce.
Breton may have had many reasons not to like Dalí’s new stylistic and presumed political direction, but what he failed to realize was that the artist was in fact using “black humour” – what became known in the postmodern world as irony – in many of his renderings. Dalí’s portrait of Ambassador Cárdenas for example, was a commission which particularly galled Breton. The poet wrote how, with “obsequious academicism,” Dalí had “gilded the portrait of the Spanish ambassador . . . That monster to whom the author of the portrait precisely owes the oppression of his country, that is to say, of the representative of Franco. Franco!”[15] While Breton was correct on all accounts, a closer inspection might have revealed that Dalí portrayed Cárdenas – subtly enough to avoid direct notice – as a Hollywood-style vampire replete with shadowy black cape and claws. This type of gesture throws Dalí’s political leanings into question and asks, was the notoriously free-thinking Dalí stooping to “obsequious academicism,” or was he surreptitiously lampooning the Ambassador and his other portrait subjects, then further undermining their dignity by requiring them to pay for the “privilege.”
Two years later, Dalí took this one step further, and announced that he was hanging out his shingle as a portrait painter for America’s high society. This was done via another exhibition, this time at Manhattan’s M. Knoedler and Company Gallery. Avidly covered by the press, critics were largely either perplexed by Dalí’s profusion of classical allusions, or disappointed by the stilted renderings of his subjects. Elsa Maxwell, whom Dalí was, ironically, to draw some years later, perhaps best summed up the critical opinion of Dalí’s portraits on show, writing,
In every instance he has reproduced them as serenely beautiful as they are in real life – but with no animation, personality, or thought behind their blank faces. He has made them all vacuous nonentities against backgrounds of lizards, rocks, deserts, clouds, and dreadful little oversexed cupids.[12]
Despite the critics finding much to dislike about the artist’s new direction, the show was extremely successful at bringing in future commissions. Dalí’s appeal in America had much to do with what Dalí scholar Dawn Ades describes as “the widely held opinion that he was an extraordinarily gifted painter technically, a brilliant draughtsman.” Dalí very successfully capitalized on this, realized that to an American audience raised with few examples of first-rate academic art, and surrounded by “Old World European” pastiches, his work appeared immensely impressive. “Perhaps,” Ades notes, “a comparatively commonplace academic technique borrowed from despised nineteenth-century masters is now unfamiliar enough to be dazzling. It is seldom recognized,” she adds, nevertheless, “that Dalí further twists it into an almost grotesque baroque mannerism, or manufactures it into a flat photographic realism.”[13]
This twisting and flattening of the Old Masters is certainly one of the hallmarks of Dalí’s portraits – at least of the 1940s and ‘50s. As part of his “classic” program, Dalí either incorporated well-known imagery from Renaissance, Baroque and classical art, such as the “oversexed cupids” to which Elsa Maxwell refers, as well as Greek columns, Roman architecture, and references to religious imagery like halos and his ubiquitous angels. More literally, in many cases he makes direct reference to specific works of art or artists, as in his homages to both Archimboldo and Piero della Francesca in his 1945 Portrait of Mrs. Isabel Styler-Tas, or his more subtle allusion to Raphael’s The Alba Madonna in his Portrait of Enid Haldorn of 1948. While such free and seemingly cavalier sampling of art history may seem like hackery to critics or art historians, a view of this approach as playful or reverential rather than pretentious offers insight into what sort of art and artists Dalí enjoyed, admired and sought to emulate.
It also adds considerable interest to the portraits, as sort of puzzles for the careful viewer, who is invited to spot Dalí’s allusions, and consider the reasoning behind them. The observer is challenged to question how they inform the work, what they mean in terms of Dalí’s opinion of his sitter, and what their implications might be to his greater body of work. How, for instance, does the stony, cracked window frame taken from the work of Gerrit Dou inform Dalí’s relationship with and estimation of the frosty Frances Drexel Munn? Or what political stance can be inferred by the two figures plucked directly from Diego Velazquez, Surrender of Breda which appear in the background of his 1943 portrait of Don Juan Cárdenas, Franco's Ambassador in the U.S. during WWII?
While Dalí seemed to be rather gleefully re-inventing himself as a “classic” painter, such capitulation to capitalist patrons and establishment ideals, and the profoundly traditional format of society portraiture itself, was a point of contention with Dalí’s former colleagues in the European avant-garde. The most vocal of these was poet and writer André Breton, the founder of the Surrealist movement. It was Breton who had vociferously ousted Dalí from the Surrealist ranks in 1939 for going in political and artistic directions he believed bucked Dalí’s former communist-leaning ideals and veered too close to supporting Spain’s new fascist dictator. In his Anthology of Black Humour, first published in 1940, Breton dismisses Dalí’s new direction completely and makes a firm distinction between the vanguard, left-leaning Surrealist Dalí, and the one “who disappeared in around 1935” only to reinvent himself as “the personality better known as Avida Dollars [Breton’s pun on “Greedy Dollars”], fashionable portraitist recently converted to the Catholic faith and to ‘the artistic ideals of the Renaissance.’”[14] These new turns, it should be stressed, were galling to the atheist, communist-leaning Breton, who was firmly rooted in the rhetoric of modernism and railed against what he described as “thinking” artists’ capitulation to the bourgeoisie and the world of commerce.
Breton may have had many reasons not to like Dalí’s new stylistic and presumed political direction, but what he failed to realize was that the artist was in fact using “black humour” – what became known in the postmodern world as irony – in many of his renderings. Dalí’s portrait of Ambassador Cárdenas for example, was a commission which particularly galled Breton. The poet wrote how, with “obsequious academicism,” Dalí had “gilded the portrait of the Spanish ambassador . . . That monster to whom the author of the portrait precisely owes the oppression of his country, that is to say, of the representative of Franco. Franco!”[15] While Breton was correct on all accounts, a closer inspection might have revealed that Dalí portrayed Cárdenas – subtly enough to avoid direct notice – as a Hollywood-style vampire replete with shadowy black cape and claws. This type of gesture throws Dalí’s political leanings into question and asks, was the notoriously free-thinking Dalí stooping to “obsequious academicism,” or was he surreptitiously lampooning the Ambassador and his other portrait subjects, then further undermining their dignity by requiring them to pay for the “privilege.”
Commercial illustration entitled Girl in Love, painted for the De Beers Collection by Salvador Dalí, 1953,
and used for an advertisement for De Beers diamonds. Published in LIFE magazine, November 30, 1953, p. 163.
and used for an advertisement for De Beers diamonds. Published in LIFE magazine, November 30, 1953, p. 163.
We seldom think of Dalí in such terms today, but during the 1940s and ‘50s, in America Dalí was very well known for his commissioned portrait painting. It became, in fact, a favourite subject for gossip columnists, who enthusiastically documented the artist’s latest likenesses of members of the smart set. Demand became such that he was even engaged to produce portrait-like works for magazine copy and advertising, illustrating stories and products from nail polish to diamonds. This embrace of the commercial and popular side of art developed in tandem with shrugging off his Surrealist label, and attempting to rebrand himself as “classic” meant a return to academic realism. While Surrealist elements remained in his work, these were mostly varying degrees of dreamy Freudian pastiches mixed with Dalí’s growing and immensely quirky personal visual lexicon.
In regards to his portraiture Dalí translated these elements into a codified iconography, which he often employed the same way Renaissance and Baroque painters used allegories and attributes to reveal character and articulate a narrative. This eclectic mix of Dalinian fantasy with traditional portraiture painted in an academic style was not always successful in the conventional sense, and research tells us, was not always the sort of thing the client had hoped for. In fact, this uneasy amalgam, together with Dalí’s claim to paint like the Old Masters, regrettably more often than not underscored his technical shortcomings as a painter. While always in command of linear perspective, it is clear he often struggled with the placement of bodies in space, with proportion, and considering frequent requests for revisions from clients, was particularly challenged by the painting of hands.
To his credit, by the 1950s Dalí’s portrait style was most often compared to that of his contemporary Pietro Annigoni, the accomplished Milanese painter who became famous when he painted Queen Elizabeth II in 1957.[16] Well known in America (he painted both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson), Annigoni was renowned for his fine technique and for successfully and subtly fusing academic style with contemporary subject matter. While Dalí was by no means as traditional, or accomplished, as Annigoni, when first in America it seems he may have taken a cue from the German émigré artist Leopold von der Decken, who went under the name of John Decker in the U.S. An art forger, caricaturist, and regular Hollywood bon-vivant, Decker was the go-to portraitist for the stars. Using his facility at imitating Old Master styles, he was commissioned to paint countless celebrities’ likenesses. Unlike Annigoni’s edifying Old Europe approach, Decker’s point of entry was to paint celebrities in terms of humorous references to famous paintings. These included Greta Garbo as the Mona Lisa, WC Fields as Queen Victoria, and Harpo Marx as Frans Hals’ Laughing Cavalier.[17]
Dalí’s sensibility sat somewhere between the gravitas and hilarity of these two artists, but considering the social commentary inherent in his portrait satire, he perhaps had more in common with the German Neue Sachlichkeit, or New Objectivity painters he would have been familiar with in Paris and Spain in the first few decades of the twentieth century. The New Objectivity was a German movement that grew parallel to Surrealism in the 1920s and early 30’s, and like Surrealism it spanned literature, film, photography and the arts. Painters varied greatly in style, but a hallmark was fusing traditional, largely realist painting with poignant symbolism and sometimes gross caricature. This approach reflected the disorder and debauchery of the German interwar period as much as the creative spirit and intellect of the epoch. That said, it has been written of the New Objectivity that it is was a form of “Americanism,” reflecting the “cult of the objective, the hard fact, the predilection for functional work, professional conscientiousness, and usefulness.”[18] This made it an apt direction for Dalí, and there are many parallels between his approach to portraiture, and that of New Objectivity artists such as Otto Dix, Christian Schad or Rudolph Schlichter.
While these German artists focused on social commentary and cultural critique regarding a society in flux and disorder, Dalí’s sights were set upon American power, wealth, and the affectations and preoccupations of the nouveau riche. In Dalí’s portraiture, his subtle but persistent caricature clearly exposes clients’ vanities and pretentions, and is evidently intended to bring them “down a notch.” As he put it in his 1957 treatise Dalí on Modern Art, “Painter, if you want to ensure for yourself a prominent place in Society you must, in the first flush of your youth, give it a violent kick in the right leg.”[19] Even with figures such as Ambassador Cárdenas, it seems this was not a political act, so much as a game he enjoyed playing, and if he got paid for it, it ultimately made him the “victor.” Cowles writes that in dealing with the moneyed class, “he has insulted, mocked, then paid court and finally made lasting friends of them . . . Good Catalan that he is, his eye all the while shrewdly evaluates their rank and their money.”[20] In terms of portraiture Dalí’s trick was — when successful — to leave his critique ambiguous or subtle enough to be tolerated by, or to slip past his client’s notice. As Cowles put it “Denouncing society on one hand and clinging to it with the other, Dalí has delicately straddled the seesaw.”[21] Using his own very personal iconography, and pushing the photographic likeness of many of his patron’s faces just to the brink of unflattering hardness, he was able to create work that – in most cases – the patron could not logically refuse.
In this way, Dalí surreptitiously upends the traditional client expectations for society portraiture, which is to glorify, beautify or dignify the sitter, and thereby reflect the client’s idealized self-image. Instead, a close examination of a large number of his portraits reveal them to be incisive studies of what the artist thinks of his subjects. Becoming familiar with Dalí’s visual language, it is soon quite clear if he liked his subject or not, if he thought they were affected, arrogant, or standoffish, or if he found them interesting, educated, or genteel. Consequently, many of Dalí’s portraits can be read as elaborate caricatures in oil, and using the caricaturist’s tools, he accomplishes exposé by exaggerating certain features, placing his subjects in poignant settings, and by using incisive symbolism. One only has to glance at his 1951 Portrait of Colonel Jack Warner, with his glimmering Hollywood grin, the self-conscious foregrounding of the subject’s movie-poster pose and its glaring circus-paint colours, to grasp Dalí’s witty handling. Likewise his 1961 Portrait of Ruth Lachman, a femme d’un certain age in a red dress and a face so sour one can only presume she was not to Dalí’s taste.
While these are subtle jabs at the sitters themselves, Dalí occasionally sent up the society portrait genre itself. Take, for instance, his overstuffed and duly pompous Equestrian Fantasy: Portrait of Lady Dunn of 1954, which he painted in a traditional equestrian format. In it the Lady peers down her nose at the viewer from her side-saddle mount, a falcon perched upon her gauntleted hand. While she did indeed ride, with her affected pose and the humorously attentive forest creatures nearby, this work is rather charming and gentle parody of the society portrait itself than a genuinely edifying likeness of Lady Dunn. While the latter received a rather cheeky nudge, her husband was the butt of one of Dalí’s cruelest jabs at sitter and genre in the portrait La Turbie: Sir James Dunn, 1949. As Canadian historian Michael Bliss observed, “Has there ever been a more absurd — perhaps more revealing — portrait of the entrepreneur than Salvador Dalí’s 1949 representation of Dunn as a Roman emperor enthroned overlooking Lake Superior?”[22]
Evidently, clients were often quite happy with Dalí’s portraits, but equally often enough, they were taken aback by his slyly satiric interpretations. Our research shows time and again that if clients did not outright reject the work, they invariably felt that something was “off,” and often admitted they never really liked the commission. Most of them however, despite feeling slightly disappointed or duped, grinned, bore it, and paid up. Perhaps it helped that Dalí “talked them up” at the time of delivery, as he did with Helena Rubinstein. The cosmetics mogul recalled that Dalí had rung and told her he had selected the frame for his portrait of her, and “was ready to present it to me.” Upon her first view, she tactfully stated that “Dalí has great charm, and, although the portrait was wonderful, he made it seem more wonderful.”[23] A friend of the artist’s, this did not stop her from later commissioning a portrait of her husband, Prince Gourielli, which a staff member later described as “an awful picture.”[24] Rubinstein nevertheless rather diplomatically defended it, stating, “I did not like it quite as much as his earlier work (although I don’t think it’s his fault). I think Dalí is a brilliant showman, and, when not hurried, is a marvelous craftsman.”[25] Indeed, despite Dalí’s best sales techniques, all too often when the work arrived, the clients ruefully paid up, and then placed the work in a closet, hung it discreetly in a bedroom or, in one case, mounted it on the wall of their dog kennel.
In the worst cases, clients were openly disappointed, insulted, or even horrified by Dalí’s portrayals, and refused to pay for the paintings. Such was the case regarding Dalí’s 1953 portrait of Ann Woodward, a former showgirl married into wealthy family, whom the usually reserved Reynolds Morse described as a “very pretty but common second wife who might have been a nightclub hostess.”[26] Evidently the Woodwards had commissioned the portrait expecting a tasteful portrayal of Ann that showed her as elegant, becoming, and very much part of the respectable smart set to which she aspired. Instead, what they received was a rendition of Mrs. Woodward as a sort of Surrealist streetwalker wrapped in a crumpled bedsheet. The papers reported that at first sight of the work, Mrs. Woodward “walked away scared . . . like walking away from a monster.”[27] Refusing to pay for the portrait upon delivery, Ann and her husband were sued by Dalí for the $7,000 commission.
Similarly, William Ichabod Nichols, editor of This Week magazine, and his wife Marie-Thérèse had been a little too pushy with Dalí about the late delivery of their commission, and finally received a portrait that made the lovely Mrs. Nichols look elderly and ugly. While they reluctantly settled the bill, the couple immediately fobbed the canvas off to a local charity shop, where it was displayed for sale in a window. As luck would have it, Dalí discovered it there, and re-purchased it. Infuriated, as an act of revenge for the Nichols’ rejecting the piece, Dalí painted over the subject giving her a slit throat and painting Medusa-like snakes in her hair. No wonder Fleur Cowles wrote that “many sitters have donned a coat of armour before facing the expensive privilege of a portrait by him.”[28]
While one might think the client would know what to expect from a portrait by viewing it while Dalí painted, the artist sidestepped any interference with or fore-knowledge of commissions by instituting a strict rule of not allowing his clients see their portraits in process. This meant that those doling out thousands for a future family heirloom seldom had so much as an inkling of what the finished painting might look like come delivery day. Regarding the portrait he painted for Sir Laurence Olivier for promotion of his 1955 film Richard III, for instance, Dalí stated “It is possible for nobody to look at this portrait before it is finished. These are my conditions. . . Like to produce one integral and complete Dalinian portrait.”[29]
Quality, approach and content were all a mixed bag that was held tightly shut, and it was impossible to know in advance if Dalí might handle a commission with delicacy and respect, with gentle jibes, or with cruelty and outright ridicule. As Cowles explains regarding his dealings with moneyed class, “Dalí has certainly run the gamut of emotions in dealing with them, starting at the bottom with derision (often openly, he boasts), as well as hate and envy and climbing all the way to the soaring heights of happy companionship with the best of them.”[30] Nevertheless, this did not seem to daunt those seeking a portrait painted by the “Divine Dalí,” and Morse recounts that the artist had told him and his wife that “he had more portrait commissions than he could possibly fulfill."[31]
While this all sounds a bit drastic, Dalí did often produce quite suitable, if slightly eccentric works people explained away as Surrealist, leaving those clients happy enough. Others were “in” on the joke, and understood that Dalí was who he was and enjoyed the privilege of being gently sent up by such a famous artist. If Dalí liked or admired his sitter, he was quite capable of creating a charming and respectful, if idiosyncratic portrait as, for instance, his delightful Portrait of Mitzi Sigall Briggs of 1948, in which the subject is likened to a bud bursting into flower, or his elegant and demure Portrait of Dolores Suero Falla, of 1955. We also know that Dalí was in fact capable of producing outright masterpieces when he chose, as evinced by a portrait of his beloved wife Gala in his famous Galarina of 1945. (This makes reference to Raphael’s La Fornarina (1518–1520), itself believed to be a likeness of the Renaissance master's mistress, Margherita Luti.) Startling in its realism, yet still quite flattering, Galarina was taken directly from a photograph, and was likely intended as a showpiece to demonstrate Dalí’s skills as a portrait artist, and his academic abilities as a painter.
Click here to view portrait.
Salvador Dalí, Galarina, 1945.
Oil on canvas, 64 x 50 cm (25.19” x 19.68”).
Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres.
Oil on canvas, 64 x 50 cm (25.19” x 19.68”).
Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres.
To be fair, there are many portraits in which Dalí has quite masterfully rendered his subjects’ full bodies, and these include some of his most impressive works. His Portrait of Alma Walker Coe and her Daughter of 1959 for instance, accurately captures his subjects’ physiques, as does his Portrait of Mrs. Reeves of 1954, which renders this lady regal and appealing. Despite his technical or stylistic shortcomings, however, it is true that for Dalí, what was painted was perhaps more important than how he painted it. As Ades writes, regarding the whole of the artist’s oeuvre, “He considered his technique to be no more than a vehicle for conveying the disturbing imagery of his work. . .”[32] Viewing Dalí’s American portraits all together as we do in this website, it is clear their quality varies greatly. In the 1930s and 1940s, when Dalí was attempting to establish himself in the portrait market, he created some of his most technically meticulous and impressive works, such as his highly detailed 1944 Portrait of Mrs. Jack Warner, or his 1945 Portrait of Mrs. Isabel Styler-Tas/Melancholy, executed in the style of Archimboldo.
Likely in an effort to speed up production, works became less detailed and more formulaic throughout the 1950s, and by the 1960s and early ‘70s, the artist seems to have largely lost interest in the genre. While there are some impressive canvases in each of his active decades, the results toward the end could be slovenly and positively dashed off. Cases in point are his 1963-65 Portrait of São Schlumberger, with brushwork so crude as to have little resemblance to Dalí’s hand, or his Portrait of Sara María Larrabure of 1963, with details so sloppy they seem practically sponged on. In later cases such as these, considering the style, technique and palette are so foreign to Dalí’s, we suspect parts of the canvas may have been handed over to one of his assistants. In a 1953 entry of Dali's Diary of a Genius, he writes that he had the young painter Tim Phillips, who lived near Dalí’s studio in Port Lligat, executing drawing and details for him, and in many of the later portraits, it seems likely Tim’s, or another assistant’s hand may have been at work here.[33]
A number of Dalí’s portraits which do clearly display his signature hand also reveal an awkwardness and some surprising technical gaffes which might be understandable in a more abstract or modernist milieu, but do not pass muster in Dalí’s “classic” context. While distortion and awkward rendering may not have been an issue in the heady early days of abstraction in which he worked, his loudly trumpeted return in the early 1940s to “classic” painting and stated desire to paint in an academic manner often served in fact to highlight his shortcomings as a painter in a conventional realist tradition, Surrealist flourishes or no. Certainly, when Dalí first presented himself as a working portraitist in his 1943 Knoedler Galleries exhibition, a number of period critics made much ado about his technical limitations. Cowles records how critics complained of his “lifeless technique,” while the New York Sun described the works as flat and trite. “There is no exhilaration in the portrayals,” she writes, “Nothing but plodding, plodding workmanship and an infinity of detail. So much for so much . . . One’s sympathies are all with the artist. So much effort is worthy of better direction.”[34]
Part of this “lifeless technique” seems to have to do with Dalí’s preference for working from photographs. Evidence strongly suggests that his first society portrait of an American, Edward Wassermann, painted in 1933, was taken from an image by American photographer Carl Van Vechten. While this appears to have been a rather loose translation, other extant base photographs, like the one copied verbatim for the 1958 Portrait of John Langeloth Loeb, show the extent to which Dalí relied on the mechanically-produced image for his portraits. Although it may be standard today, the practice of painting from photographs was sorely frowned upon during Dalí’s time. He, however, freely admitted to it. “Some say, ‘Why, Picasso never copied a photograph!’” he writes in The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dalí. “All my life I have of course used photography.”[35] This he qualified in an interview some years earlier, explaining that “The immortal Greeks did the same for their divine sculptures, molding directly certain fragments . . .” to which he adds, “for this it is nevertheless preferable to know a little bit of drawing.”[36]
While working from photographs may seem a minor detail, the problem was that Dalí often did not succeed in integrating his transcription of the photograph with the rest of the painting, which was usually rendered from his imagination. A surprising number of his early portraits, in particular, consist of floating or disembodied heads, busts placed on top of plinths or Greek columns, visages emanating from rocks or vegetation, or rendered as roundels or coins. This, one suspects, had less to do with Surrealism, and more to do with Dalí’s disinterest in or difficulty with the smooth and natural transition of heads taken from photographs with bodies that were often drawn from fantasy. This awkward amalgam was never as jarring as it is in his 1943 Portrait of Mrs. Harrison Williams, which was surely one of the works Morse was referring to when he described Dalí’s portraits as featuring “surrealistic backdrops with a face pasted on like a postage stamp on a Dalí sampler.”[37] Linda Briggs (now Leonard), who appears as the only girl with four boys in the Briggs Family Portrait of 1964, notes that the faces of the children were at odds with the bodies of the five subjects, whose real bodies did not resemble those in the final painting. She recalls that when she first saw the finished portrait, which Dalí had completed in his studio allegedly from sketches of the Briggs children, she knew that “those were not my legs.”[38]
Likely in an effort to speed up production, works became less detailed and more formulaic throughout the 1950s, and by the 1960s and early ‘70s, the artist seems to have largely lost interest in the genre. While there are some impressive canvases in each of his active decades, the results toward the end could be slovenly and positively dashed off. Cases in point are his 1963-65 Portrait of São Schlumberger, with brushwork so crude as to have little resemblance to Dalí’s hand, or his Portrait of Sara María Larrabure of 1963, with details so sloppy they seem practically sponged on. In later cases such as these, considering the style, technique and palette are so foreign to Dalí’s, we suspect parts of the canvas may have been handed over to one of his assistants. In a 1953 entry of Dali's Diary of a Genius, he writes that he had the young painter Tim Phillips, who lived near Dalí’s studio in Port Lligat, executing drawing and details for him, and in many of the later portraits, it seems likely Tim’s, or another assistant’s hand may have been at work here.[33]
A number of Dalí’s portraits which do clearly display his signature hand also reveal an awkwardness and some surprising technical gaffes which might be understandable in a more abstract or modernist milieu, but do not pass muster in Dalí’s “classic” context. While distortion and awkward rendering may not have been an issue in the heady early days of abstraction in which he worked, his loudly trumpeted return in the early 1940s to “classic” painting and stated desire to paint in an academic manner often served in fact to highlight his shortcomings as a painter in a conventional realist tradition, Surrealist flourishes or no. Certainly, when Dalí first presented himself as a working portraitist in his 1943 Knoedler Galleries exhibition, a number of period critics made much ado about his technical limitations. Cowles records how critics complained of his “lifeless technique,” while the New York Sun described the works as flat and trite. “There is no exhilaration in the portrayals,” she writes, “Nothing but plodding, plodding workmanship and an infinity of detail. So much for so much . . . One’s sympathies are all with the artist. So much effort is worthy of better direction.”[34]
Part of this “lifeless technique” seems to have to do with Dalí’s preference for working from photographs. Evidence strongly suggests that his first society portrait of an American, Edward Wassermann, painted in 1933, was taken from an image by American photographer Carl Van Vechten. While this appears to have been a rather loose translation, other extant base photographs, like the one copied verbatim for the 1958 Portrait of John Langeloth Loeb, show the extent to which Dalí relied on the mechanically-produced image for his portraits. Although it may be standard today, the practice of painting from photographs was sorely frowned upon during Dalí’s time. He, however, freely admitted to it. “Some say, ‘Why, Picasso never copied a photograph!’” he writes in The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dalí. “All my life I have of course used photography.”[35] This he qualified in an interview some years earlier, explaining that “The immortal Greeks did the same for their divine sculptures, molding directly certain fragments . . .” to which he adds, “for this it is nevertheless preferable to know a little bit of drawing.”[36]
While working from photographs may seem a minor detail, the problem was that Dalí often did not succeed in integrating his transcription of the photograph with the rest of the painting, which was usually rendered from his imagination. A surprising number of his early portraits, in particular, consist of floating or disembodied heads, busts placed on top of plinths or Greek columns, visages emanating from rocks or vegetation, or rendered as roundels or coins. This, one suspects, had less to do with Surrealism, and more to do with Dalí’s disinterest in or difficulty with the smooth and natural transition of heads taken from photographs with bodies that were often drawn from fantasy. This awkward amalgam was never as jarring as it is in his 1943 Portrait of Mrs. Harrison Williams, which was surely one of the works Morse was referring to when he described Dalí’s portraits as featuring “surrealistic backdrops with a face pasted on like a postage stamp on a Dalí sampler.”[37] Linda Briggs (now Leonard), who appears as the only girl with four boys in the Briggs Family Portrait of 1964, notes that the faces of the children were at odds with the bodies of the five subjects, whose real bodies did not resemble those in the final painting. She recalls that when she first saw the finished portrait, which Dalí had completed in his studio allegedly from sketches of the Briggs children, she knew that “those were not my legs.”[38]
Salvador Dalí in a hotel room in 1941 drawing with the help of his "Thought Compression Chamber."
Ostensibly for the purpose of stimulating his imagination, Dali's technique of drawing with projection and a grid
is very similar to those used during the Renaissance by artists such as Albrecht Durer,
to transcribe images to paper or canvas. It is possible Dali, at least occasionally, used a
similar technique to transcribe photographic slides projected from the apparatus on his head.
Published in THE AMERICAN WEEKLY, August 10, 1941.
Ostensibly for the purpose of stimulating his imagination, Dali's technique of drawing with projection and a grid
is very similar to those used during the Renaissance by artists such as Albrecht Durer,
to transcribe images to paper or canvas. It is possible Dali, at least occasionally, used a
similar technique to transcribe photographic slides projected from the apparatus on his head.
Published in THE AMERICAN WEEKLY, August 10, 1941.
Dalí’s paintings are well known for their frequent returns to the landscape of Port Lligat, near where he vacationed as a child with his family in Cadaqués, in Catalunya, Spain. Such was a locale for which Dalí held a deep affection, and where he and Gala eventually built their permanent home. This familiar background is featured in many of Dalí’s society portraits, although the artist often reconfigures it to reflect the personality or lifestyle of his clients. His 1946 Portrait of Luli Kollsman, for example, clearly evokes the San Fernando Valley in which she lived, while his 1948 Portrait of Enid Haldorn resembles the shoreline and landmarks of Pebble Beach, near her dwelling in Monterey, California.
While such versions of the Port Lligat backdrop usually form the basis of Dalí’s portraits, with the subject to the fore, the artist also developed a very personal and surprisingly literal visual lexicon, which he used to articulate his views on the sitter’s character. Through his own writings, and information gleaned from portrait subjects, we have been able to decipher a good portion of this language, which he articulated largely through the use of botanical imagery, religious symbolism, and the positioning of specific objects in the landscape. Sometimes these are quite obvious, as in the astronaut imagery featured in Portrait of Mrs. Ann W. Green and her son Jonathan of 1963, reflecting the family’s ties with, and interest in, the American aerospace industry. In some cases Dalí wrote of his own volition, or was asked to record detailed descriptions of the meaning of the symbolism in his work, as he did for his Portrait of Louis Sachar of 1961. A note written by Dalí and preserved in the files of the Rose Museum at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, who own the painting, explains the portrait’s symbolism, including the tower in the background which refers directly to Sachar’s profession as a New York realty investor and builder.
While Dalí’s descriptions of anything always need to be taken with a grain of salt, they nevertheless lend insight not only to this work, but to his use of symbolism in general. Perhaps the most notable of his comments on portrait iconography appears in the catalogue for his first portrait exhibition at the M. Knoedler and Company Gallery in New York in 1943. In it, the artist writes "As far as the portraits are concerned my aim was to establish a rapport of fatality between each of the different personalities and their backgrounds, in a manner which, far from any direct symbolism, constitutes the sum of the mediumistic and iconographic volume that each person represented was capable of releasing in my mind.”[39] While characteristically obtuse, this statement does yield some insight into the choices Dalí made in the settings and trappings of a significant number of his commissions. His claim to avoid “direct symbolism” we have found however is far from accurate, and we know from the written record that despite what a subject might “release in his mind,” he also very much drew upon traditional use of attributes and botanical symbolism from Renaissance and Baroque art.
Dalí’s “rapport of fatality” points to death, and perhaps the cycles of life, a common theme in the academic art he so admired. As he wrote in The Secret Life, “Death and resurrection, revolution and renaissance – these are the Dalinian myths of my tradition.”[40] This interest in the life cycle might explain his frequent habit of making his subjects appear older and less attractive than they actually were. On more than one occasion, in response to a client’s objections to being “aged,” Dalí insisted that “I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject. Rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.”[41] Strangely, this sort of reverse Dorian Grey approach was confirmed by more than a few of his subjects, such as the lovely Eva Suero, whom Dalí painted in 1973. Suero and her family initially found that the artist had portrayed this young, beautiful woman as much older than her years. Strangely, as Dalí predicted, through time she did in fact grow very much to look like the mature woman on the canvas.[42] In this way, perhaps such works were intended as a form of memento mori, reminding those depicted of the fleeting nature of time and the ephemeral nature of beauty.
Images corresponding to growth, decay and death are highly present in Dalí’s portraits, and specifically in his use of foliage and trees. These are quite pronounced, and invariably refer to the life stage of the sitter. For example, the unfinished portrait of ten-year old Alexander Guest, circa 1959, whose young form is echoed in the sapling which grows behind him. Conversely in Portrait of Mildred Fagen of 1960, the subject’s aging body and rather rough hands are reflected in the gnarled tree stump upon which she sits. Most portentous of all is the cypress, a largely Mediterranean tree which appears in a small number of portraits, such as Portrait of the Marquis de Cuevas of 1942. Traditionally associated with death, in The Secret Life Dalí writes of the cypress’s “myth of incorruptibility, of immortality,” which perhaps refers favourably back to Cuevas, who as it happens was also a friend of the Dalís.[43]
While trees and foliage tend to articulate the life stages of his subjects, Dalí similarly employed floral and plant imagery to reflect upon the sitter’s vitality and beauty – or perceived lack of it. He evidently thought very highly of the elegant and cultured Berthe David-Weill, the French wife of investment banker Pierre David-Weill, whom he painted in 1952. He placed a fresh pink rose floating in the air next to her face, and two anthropomorphic blossoms seemingly paying homage at her feet. Conversely, when he placed the namesake rose behind the middle-aged Rosemary Chisholm, whom he painted in 1961, the bloom lies flat on the ground, and as her son pointed out, is “slightly wilted.”[44] Seldom subtle with botanical symbolism, Dalí could also use plants and flowers to cut like a knife, as he did with Helena Rubinstein’s husband, Prince Gourielli. Believing the Prince was of dubious lineage, Dalí painted a common weed at his feet.[45] Perhaps most cruelly of all, in his portrait of Nada Patcévitch, a one-time British beauty now past her prime, he planted prominently before her a dandelion gone to seed.
Dalí effectively drew upon collective associations with certain trees, plants and flowers to either reveal a subject’s character, or his estimation of their charms. He also drew in some cases upon fixed botanical symbolism from Renaissance and Baroque painting traditions. We know he kept books on this subject in his library, which is largely intact at the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation in Figueres. The collection includes titles which explore the symbolism of plants and flowers in art, such as Margaretta Salinger’s Flowers: The Flower Piece in European Painting, 1949.[46] The most prevalent example of Dalí’s drawing on this academic tradition is the use of the carnation, which has always been a symbol of love, passion and betrothal. It appears in several portraits which, considering the sitter’s circumstances, strongly suggest the flower carries this time-honoured connotation. In his Portrait of Josephine Hartford Bryce of 1950, for example, the client, who was married the same year as her portrait was painted, clutches a red carnation to her breast.
When Cowles wrote in 1959 that “it is true that it requires courage to be painted by Dalí,” she meant that a client never knew how flattering or embarrassing the final canvas might turn out to be.[47] While living with the outcome of some of Dalí’s portraits may have required fortitude, however, with a few notable exceptions sitting for Dalí was reported to be quite a pleasant and uneventful experience. Interviews with some of his subjects reveal that the artist was invariably quite reserved, and worked diligently on what were presumed to be preliminary sketches. Arthur Herrington, whom Dalí painted when Herrington was a young man of twenty-seven, remembers the two had lively conversations about science, and notes how surprised he was at how well-informed Dalí was on the subject, complimenting in particular his grasp of complex concepts. Especially when children were involved, Dalí and Gala were said to be gracious hosts to those visiting one of his studios, although Dalí did occasionally offer brandy to children during breakfast.[48] Invariably, sitters recall that the artist was nothing like the outrageous showman or clown persona he so often presented to the press.
That said, there is no doubt that especially in his younger years, Dalí rather misbehaved with a few of his female subjects. We know for example that he preferred ladies in diaphanous, chiton-like garments and always décolleté where permitted. Many of the portraits feature women with a loose drape pulled up just enough to cover their breasts, and the neck left bare, as in the portraits of Portrait of Mrs. Luther Greene, 1942 or Portrait of Elizabeth Gregory of 1948, in both of which the women look decidedly uncomfortable. Americans being much less accustomed to flesh in art, this much cleavage was a bit too risqué for some clients. In one case what is meant to look like a piece of lace was later painted over one of Dalí’s more plunging necklines, although it is not known if this was daubed on by Dalí, or another artist.[49]
While this revealing approach added a sensual note to the paintings, one of the problems was that, especially for attractive younger women, Dalí often insisted that they remain naked beneath the cloth or wrap for their sittings. A number of accounts reveal how the painter could get uncomfortably close to his subjects, to the point where they occasionally felt the need for “protection” of their husbands nearby. As one such former husband wrote, Dalí had become “a bit too friendly” with his wife.[50] The daughter of another subject confided that during one sitting, Dalí had bitten her mother.[51] These women escaped the worst, however, as Dalí was much less restrained when it came to models he hired. The actress Ali MacGraw, who worked as his model before her career gained momentum, reported in her autobiography that during a sitting the artist first asked her to take off all her clothes, and then proceeded to suck her toes.[52]
While such versions of the Port Lligat backdrop usually form the basis of Dalí’s portraits, with the subject to the fore, the artist also developed a very personal and surprisingly literal visual lexicon, which he used to articulate his views on the sitter’s character. Through his own writings, and information gleaned from portrait subjects, we have been able to decipher a good portion of this language, which he articulated largely through the use of botanical imagery, religious symbolism, and the positioning of specific objects in the landscape. Sometimes these are quite obvious, as in the astronaut imagery featured in Portrait of Mrs. Ann W. Green and her son Jonathan of 1963, reflecting the family’s ties with, and interest in, the American aerospace industry. In some cases Dalí wrote of his own volition, or was asked to record detailed descriptions of the meaning of the symbolism in his work, as he did for his Portrait of Louis Sachar of 1961. A note written by Dalí and preserved in the files of the Rose Museum at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, who own the painting, explains the portrait’s symbolism, including the tower in the background which refers directly to Sachar’s profession as a New York realty investor and builder.
While Dalí’s descriptions of anything always need to be taken with a grain of salt, they nevertheless lend insight not only to this work, but to his use of symbolism in general. Perhaps the most notable of his comments on portrait iconography appears in the catalogue for his first portrait exhibition at the M. Knoedler and Company Gallery in New York in 1943. In it, the artist writes "As far as the portraits are concerned my aim was to establish a rapport of fatality between each of the different personalities and their backgrounds, in a manner which, far from any direct symbolism, constitutes the sum of the mediumistic and iconographic volume that each person represented was capable of releasing in my mind.”[39] While characteristically obtuse, this statement does yield some insight into the choices Dalí made in the settings and trappings of a significant number of his commissions. His claim to avoid “direct symbolism” we have found however is far from accurate, and we know from the written record that despite what a subject might “release in his mind,” he also very much drew upon traditional use of attributes and botanical symbolism from Renaissance and Baroque art.
Dalí’s “rapport of fatality” points to death, and perhaps the cycles of life, a common theme in the academic art he so admired. As he wrote in The Secret Life, “Death and resurrection, revolution and renaissance – these are the Dalinian myths of my tradition.”[40] This interest in the life cycle might explain his frequent habit of making his subjects appear older and less attractive than they actually were. On more than one occasion, in response to a client’s objections to being “aged,” Dalí insisted that “I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject. Rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.”[41] Strangely, this sort of reverse Dorian Grey approach was confirmed by more than a few of his subjects, such as the lovely Eva Suero, whom Dalí painted in 1973. Suero and her family initially found that the artist had portrayed this young, beautiful woman as much older than her years. Strangely, as Dalí predicted, through time she did in fact grow very much to look like the mature woman on the canvas.[42] In this way, perhaps such works were intended as a form of memento mori, reminding those depicted of the fleeting nature of time and the ephemeral nature of beauty.
Images corresponding to growth, decay and death are highly present in Dalí’s portraits, and specifically in his use of foliage and trees. These are quite pronounced, and invariably refer to the life stage of the sitter. For example, the unfinished portrait of ten-year old Alexander Guest, circa 1959, whose young form is echoed in the sapling which grows behind him. Conversely in Portrait of Mildred Fagen of 1960, the subject’s aging body and rather rough hands are reflected in the gnarled tree stump upon which she sits. Most portentous of all is the cypress, a largely Mediterranean tree which appears in a small number of portraits, such as Portrait of the Marquis de Cuevas of 1942. Traditionally associated with death, in The Secret Life Dalí writes of the cypress’s “myth of incorruptibility, of immortality,” which perhaps refers favourably back to Cuevas, who as it happens was also a friend of the Dalís.[43]
While trees and foliage tend to articulate the life stages of his subjects, Dalí similarly employed floral and plant imagery to reflect upon the sitter’s vitality and beauty – or perceived lack of it. He evidently thought very highly of the elegant and cultured Berthe David-Weill, the French wife of investment banker Pierre David-Weill, whom he painted in 1952. He placed a fresh pink rose floating in the air next to her face, and two anthropomorphic blossoms seemingly paying homage at her feet. Conversely, when he placed the namesake rose behind the middle-aged Rosemary Chisholm, whom he painted in 1961, the bloom lies flat on the ground, and as her son pointed out, is “slightly wilted.”[44] Seldom subtle with botanical symbolism, Dalí could also use plants and flowers to cut like a knife, as he did with Helena Rubinstein’s husband, Prince Gourielli. Believing the Prince was of dubious lineage, Dalí painted a common weed at his feet.[45] Perhaps most cruelly of all, in his portrait of Nada Patcévitch, a one-time British beauty now past her prime, he planted prominently before her a dandelion gone to seed.
Dalí effectively drew upon collective associations with certain trees, plants and flowers to either reveal a subject’s character, or his estimation of their charms. He also drew in some cases upon fixed botanical symbolism from Renaissance and Baroque painting traditions. We know he kept books on this subject in his library, which is largely intact at the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation in Figueres. The collection includes titles which explore the symbolism of plants and flowers in art, such as Margaretta Salinger’s Flowers: The Flower Piece in European Painting, 1949.[46] The most prevalent example of Dalí’s drawing on this academic tradition is the use of the carnation, which has always been a symbol of love, passion and betrothal. It appears in several portraits which, considering the sitter’s circumstances, strongly suggest the flower carries this time-honoured connotation. In his Portrait of Josephine Hartford Bryce of 1950, for example, the client, who was married the same year as her portrait was painted, clutches a red carnation to her breast.
When Cowles wrote in 1959 that “it is true that it requires courage to be painted by Dalí,” she meant that a client never knew how flattering or embarrassing the final canvas might turn out to be.[47] While living with the outcome of some of Dalí’s portraits may have required fortitude, however, with a few notable exceptions sitting for Dalí was reported to be quite a pleasant and uneventful experience. Interviews with some of his subjects reveal that the artist was invariably quite reserved, and worked diligently on what were presumed to be preliminary sketches. Arthur Herrington, whom Dalí painted when Herrington was a young man of twenty-seven, remembers the two had lively conversations about science, and notes how surprised he was at how well-informed Dalí was on the subject, complimenting in particular his grasp of complex concepts. Especially when children were involved, Dalí and Gala were said to be gracious hosts to those visiting one of his studios, although Dalí did occasionally offer brandy to children during breakfast.[48] Invariably, sitters recall that the artist was nothing like the outrageous showman or clown persona he so often presented to the press.
That said, there is no doubt that especially in his younger years, Dalí rather misbehaved with a few of his female subjects. We know for example that he preferred ladies in diaphanous, chiton-like garments and always décolleté where permitted. Many of the portraits feature women with a loose drape pulled up just enough to cover their breasts, and the neck left bare, as in the portraits of Portrait of Mrs. Luther Greene, 1942 or Portrait of Elizabeth Gregory of 1948, in both of which the women look decidedly uncomfortable. Americans being much less accustomed to flesh in art, this much cleavage was a bit too risqué for some clients. In one case what is meant to look like a piece of lace was later painted over one of Dalí’s more plunging necklines, although it is not known if this was daubed on by Dalí, or another artist.[49]
While this revealing approach added a sensual note to the paintings, one of the problems was that, especially for attractive younger women, Dalí often insisted that they remain naked beneath the cloth or wrap for their sittings. A number of accounts reveal how the painter could get uncomfortably close to his subjects, to the point where they occasionally felt the need for “protection” of their husbands nearby. As one such former husband wrote, Dalí had become “a bit too friendly” with his wife.[50] The daughter of another subject confided that during one sitting, Dalí had bitten her mother.[51] These women escaped the worst, however, as Dalí was much less restrained when it came to models he hired. The actress Ali MacGraw, who worked as his model before her career gained momentum, reported in her autobiography that during a sitting the artist first asked her to take off all her clothes, and then proceeded to suck her toes.[52]
Dalí did not always behave this badly in the face of beauty. Mon Ling Landegger, whom Dalí referred to as the “most beautiful exotic woman in the world,” was approached by Dalí to be painted directly after they met in the early 1960s. Well-educated, widely-travelled and charming as well as being extremely lovely, the artist was obviously enchanted by her. She recalled that he came to visit her about every two weeks when he was in New York, over the course of a year. Apparently he loved to chat and gossip with her while sketching, and she remembers the sittings fondly, and without incident. Nevertheless, despite this seemingly meticulous attention to his preliminary drawings, these turned out to be ruse. Instead the final product was painted directly from a photograph.
This, in fact, was a pattern that increasingly marked Dalí’s sittings as his career progressed. Frequently the artist would undertake a number of scheduled sessions, usually anywhere from about four to ten. In these, he appeared to make preliminary sketches which, as mentioned, the client was never allowed to see. He would then request photographs of the sitter to facilitate the likeness and presumably complement the sketches. Then he would disappear for sometimes a year or two, while he worked on the portrait in his studio in New York, Pebble Beach or Port Lligat. Finally, when the canvas arrived by post, or was delivered for an unveiling, the sitter would discover the section of the portrait that depicted their person had been taken verbatim from one of the photographs. Evidently, at least in Dalí’s later years as a society portraitist, the sittings were largely to make the client feel he or she was being afforded appropriate treatment for a pricey portrait, or perhaps, simply because the artist appreciated the social opportunity his commissions yielded.
While Dalí naturally enjoyed spending time with wealthy, attractive, intelligent and well-connected people, it seems he believed the feeling was mutual. In a small book intended to introduce the novice to the idiosyncratic spoken lexicon the artist dubbed “Dalínian language,” Reynolds Morse wrote that “Dalí once laughingly related how people whose portraits he paints always get their money’s worth because the sittings soon evolve into therapeutic sessions with himself in the role of psychiatric analyst. In fact,” he continued, the artist once claimed that “the immense anguish his clients often betray when the first portrait is about to be finished has often resulted in the ordering of another new one!”[53]
* * * * *
This website is the result of many years of research involving combing through correspondence, newspapers and archives, scouring Dalí’s writings and autobiographical materials, plumbing the voluminous literature about the artist, pestering auction houses, museums, galleries and foundations, and conducting interviews with surviving portrait subjects and their relatives. In the process, we were able to unearth a number of heretofore unpublished works (some of which have since been published), identify several anonymous subjects, and even discovered that one of Dalí’s portraits had been overpainted. Most importantly, we were able to put together what we believe is lucid overview of Dalí’s society portraiture as it relates to the Americas, and a comprehensive catalogue and timeline of the creation of the individual pieces.
While every effort has been made to document all known works within the parameters of the stated criteria, trying to locate and research portraits by Dalí has been a challenging task. There is no evidence that Dalí kept any sort of inventory of these paintings and drawings, and many are in private collections, or have purposely been kept from the public eye for a number of reasons. These include attempts to avoid scandal, associations with painful family histories, or simply because the original owners felt they were too unflattering or poorly executed to be shown in public. This is further complicated by a large amount of misinformation in the written record, not to mention Dalí’s notorious love of obfuscation.
Other research challenges included wading through frequent and often dubious announcements that Dalí was slated to limn a notable socialite, millionaire or actress. These were found in printed sources such as the artist’s quirky personal newsletter, The Dalí News, in the society pages of newspapers, or in such illustrious publications as the National Enquirer. These potential commissions were likely largely based on loose conversations with the relevant individual at a dinner party or gallery opening. As we discovered, such plans often fell through, or Dalí had announced commissions that were for the most part either intended to push a potential client’s hand, or were mere canards devised for the sake of publicity. Nevertheless, they required research, and we frequently found ourselves following the trail of a not insubstantial number of well-heeled or famous American red herrings.
Among these were stated plans to paint the portraits of Jacqueline Onassis, the Bolivian tycoon Antenor Patiño, American financier Bernard Baruch, New York debutante Virginia Leigh, Constance Gregory, the wife of American attorney and author George Gregory, American mining heiress and owner of the famous “Hope Diamond,” Evalyn Walsh McLean, American socialite and owner of General Foods, Marjorie Merriweather Post, and Anglo-Canadian businessman, publisher and politician Lord Beaverbrook. Dalí also attempted to tap the world of entertainment, including rumoured commissions to paint Mrs. Van Johnson, actress Armina Marshall, co-administrator of New York's Theatre Guild, Kathryn Murray, wife of American dance instructor Arthur Murray, American singer Abbe Lane, actor Cary Grant, Danish-American actress Greta Thyssen, Grace Kelly (later Princess Grace of Monaco) and American actress Judith Anderson, famous for playing Mrs. Danvers in the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock film Rebecca. Considerable effort was likewise expended attempting to locate an alleged silver platter embossed with Dalí’s likeness of Chicagoan Lolita Armour Mitchell, a member of the Armour meat packing family. We were similarly strained to divine the subject and source of a Surrealist portrait of a brown-haired woman, attributed to Dalí, which was posted on a website. Seen long before AI art generation was available, the image has not, to our knowledge, been verified as Dalí’s work. It looks so convincing, however, as to have afforded us a few sleepless nights.
This, in fact, was a pattern that increasingly marked Dalí’s sittings as his career progressed. Frequently the artist would undertake a number of scheduled sessions, usually anywhere from about four to ten. In these, he appeared to make preliminary sketches which, as mentioned, the client was never allowed to see. He would then request photographs of the sitter to facilitate the likeness and presumably complement the sketches. Then he would disappear for sometimes a year or two, while he worked on the portrait in his studio in New York, Pebble Beach or Port Lligat. Finally, when the canvas arrived by post, or was delivered for an unveiling, the sitter would discover the section of the portrait that depicted their person had been taken verbatim from one of the photographs. Evidently, at least in Dalí’s later years as a society portraitist, the sittings were largely to make the client feel he or she was being afforded appropriate treatment for a pricey portrait, or perhaps, simply because the artist appreciated the social opportunity his commissions yielded.
While Dalí naturally enjoyed spending time with wealthy, attractive, intelligent and well-connected people, it seems he believed the feeling was mutual. In a small book intended to introduce the novice to the idiosyncratic spoken lexicon the artist dubbed “Dalínian language,” Reynolds Morse wrote that “Dalí once laughingly related how people whose portraits he paints always get their money’s worth because the sittings soon evolve into therapeutic sessions with himself in the role of psychiatric analyst. In fact,” he continued, the artist once claimed that “the immense anguish his clients often betray when the first portrait is about to be finished has often resulted in the ordering of another new one!”[53]
* * * * *
This website is the result of many years of research involving combing through correspondence, newspapers and archives, scouring Dalí’s writings and autobiographical materials, plumbing the voluminous literature about the artist, pestering auction houses, museums, galleries and foundations, and conducting interviews with surviving portrait subjects and their relatives. In the process, we were able to unearth a number of heretofore unpublished works (some of which have since been published), identify several anonymous subjects, and even discovered that one of Dalí’s portraits had been overpainted. Most importantly, we were able to put together what we believe is lucid overview of Dalí’s society portraiture as it relates to the Americas, and a comprehensive catalogue and timeline of the creation of the individual pieces.
While every effort has been made to document all known works within the parameters of the stated criteria, trying to locate and research portraits by Dalí has been a challenging task. There is no evidence that Dalí kept any sort of inventory of these paintings and drawings, and many are in private collections, or have purposely been kept from the public eye for a number of reasons. These include attempts to avoid scandal, associations with painful family histories, or simply because the original owners felt they were too unflattering or poorly executed to be shown in public. This is further complicated by a large amount of misinformation in the written record, not to mention Dalí’s notorious love of obfuscation.
Other research challenges included wading through frequent and often dubious announcements that Dalí was slated to limn a notable socialite, millionaire or actress. These were found in printed sources such as the artist’s quirky personal newsletter, The Dalí News, in the society pages of newspapers, or in such illustrious publications as the National Enquirer. These potential commissions were likely largely based on loose conversations with the relevant individual at a dinner party or gallery opening. As we discovered, such plans often fell through, or Dalí had announced commissions that were for the most part either intended to push a potential client’s hand, or were mere canards devised for the sake of publicity. Nevertheless, they required research, and we frequently found ourselves following the trail of a not insubstantial number of well-heeled or famous American red herrings.
Among these were stated plans to paint the portraits of Jacqueline Onassis, the Bolivian tycoon Antenor Patiño, American financier Bernard Baruch, New York debutante Virginia Leigh, Constance Gregory, the wife of American attorney and author George Gregory, American mining heiress and owner of the famous “Hope Diamond,” Evalyn Walsh McLean, American socialite and owner of General Foods, Marjorie Merriweather Post, and Anglo-Canadian businessman, publisher and politician Lord Beaverbrook. Dalí also attempted to tap the world of entertainment, including rumoured commissions to paint Mrs. Van Johnson, actress Armina Marshall, co-administrator of New York's Theatre Guild, Kathryn Murray, wife of American dance instructor Arthur Murray, American singer Abbe Lane, actor Cary Grant, Danish-American actress Greta Thyssen, Grace Kelly (later Princess Grace of Monaco) and American actress Judith Anderson, famous for playing Mrs. Danvers in the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock film Rebecca. Considerable effort was likewise expended attempting to locate an alleged silver platter embossed with Dalí’s likeness of Chicagoan Lolita Armour Mitchell, a member of the Armour meat packing family. We were similarly strained to divine the subject and source of a Surrealist portrait of a brown-haired woman, attributed to Dalí, which was posted on a website. Seen long before AI art generation was available, the image has not, to our knowledge, been verified as Dalí’s work. It looks so convincing, however, as to have afforded us a few sleepless nights.
Portrait of a Woman (ascribed to Dalí), similar to the artist’s work of the mid-1930s.
Provenance, materials, whereabouts unknown.[54]
Provenance, materials, whereabouts unknown.[54]
Equally without success we attempted to locate certain known lost or stolen works, including the 1941 Portrait of Mrs. George Tait II (Mrs. Harold McCormick), which was pilfered from the family home in 1972, and Dalí’s portrait of the ten year old Edith Hale Harkness, which disappeared after the subject took her own life in 1982. (Although we believe we know where it now likely is, the presumed owner did not answer our query). For the record, Dalí evidently considered painting Eleanor Morse, co-founder with her husband A. Reynolds Morse, of the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. “Dalí said that someday he would paint ‘Layanor’s’ portrait,” wrote Morse in his private journal. “He said he would do it on copper, possibly in the summer at Port Lligat.”[55]
When we first started the research for the book, we tried very hard to maintain scholarly standards, but this also proved something of a challenge. There is, for one thing, much misinformation in print about Salvador Dalí, and a good portion of received knowledge about the artist, we discovered, needs to be thoroughly vetted. While we were able to access a number of period newspaper clippings, often in scrapbooks assembled by museum volunteers and Dalí enthusiasts through the years, these well-meaning individuals often did not fully cite the articles, which threw our endnotes off. Finally, most unusual for works written about art, whether for reasons of inaccessibility, obscurity or distance, in the majority of instances we were unable to view the works in question first-hand, and had to conduct analyses using only photographs of the individual works. This could prove formidable as while some portraits are beautifully visually documented, many are not, and we were not always able to see the detail we would have liked. For that reason, we diminished the focus on Dalí’s technique, medium, and the physical nature of his paintings, and concentrated primarily on the biographies of the subjects, the known circumstances of each commission, and discussion of their composition, style and subject matter.
There was deliberation as to how to organize this type of material, including by theme, gender, nationality, iconography, or other criteria. After considerable experimentation, and finding that our list of portraits grew to an unwieldy size, we opted for a chronological and comprehensive catalogue format. This, we believe, will make this website easier to use as a reference, and will also facilitate comparative analysis of the artist’s development in the portrait genre.
While researching and writing this site has been a time-consuming and sometimes daunting project, we believe that it is as comprehensive as current resources allow, and feel confident that it does justice to Dali's largely undocumented American society portraits, as we define them. Not everyone will agree with our thesis that much of Dalí’s portraiture can be viewed in terms of caricature or satire. Nor can we guarantee that people will, as we entreat, judge his portraits on their own, uniquely Dalinian terms rather than those of traditional society portraiture. We do believe however that the contents of this website comprises a missing piece of the puzzle that is Dalí’s creative corpus, and that it will open dialogue for further research and appreciation of this unique artist’s American society portraits. If nothing else – and this we can guarantee — it is a fun and intriguing read that follows the lives of numerous people living affluent and often extravagant lives in America, and a unique aspect in the creative output of one of the twentieth century’s most influential, original and outlandish artists.
When we first started the research for the book, we tried very hard to maintain scholarly standards, but this also proved something of a challenge. There is, for one thing, much misinformation in print about Salvador Dalí, and a good portion of received knowledge about the artist, we discovered, needs to be thoroughly vetted. While we were able to access a number of period newspaper clippings, often in scrapbooks assembled by museum volunteers and Dalí enthusiasts through the years, these well-meaning individuals often did not fully cite the articles, which threw our endnotes off. Finally, most unusual for works written about art, whether for reasons of inaccessibility, obscurity or distance, in the majority of instances we were unable to view the works in question first-hand, and had to conduct analyses using only photographs of the individual works. This could prove formidable as while some portraits are beautifully visually documented, many are not, and we were not always able to see the detail we would have liked. For that reason, we diminished the focus on Dalí’s technique, medium, and the physical nature of his paintings, and concentrated primarily on the biographies of the subjects, the known circumstances of each commission, and discussion of their composition, style and subject matter.
There was deliberation as to how to organize this type of material, including by theme, gender, nationality, iconography, or other criteria. After considerable experimentation, and finding that our list of portraits grew to an unwieldy size, we opted for a chronological and comprehensive catalogue format. This, we believe, will make this website easier to use as a reference, and will also facilitate comparative analysis of the artist’s development in the portrait genre.
While researching and writing this site has been a time-consuming and sometimes daunting project, we believe that it is as comprehensive as current resources allow, and feel confident that it does justice to Dali's largely undocumented American society portraits, as we define them. Not everyone will agree with our thesis that much of Dalí’s portraiture can be viewed in terms of caricature or satire. Nor can we guarantee that people will, as we entreat, judge his portraits on their own, uniquely Dalinian terms rather than those of traditional society portraiture. We do believe however that the contents of this website comprises a missing piece of the puzzle that is Dalí’s creative corpus, and that it will open dialogue for further research and appreciation of this unique artist’s American society portraits. If nothing else – and this we can guarantee — it is a fun and intriguing read that follows the lives of numerous people living affluent and often extravagant lives in America, and a unique aspect in the creative output of one of the twentieth century’s most influential, original and outlandish artists.
ENDNOTES
[1] Fleur Cowles, The Case of Salvador Dalí (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1959), 223.
[2] Staff writer, Samedi-Soir, 21-27, June, 1952, author’s translation, as reproduced in Montse Aguer, Dalí and the Magazines, exh. cat. (Figueres: Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, 2008), 39.
[3] Richard Ormond, “Introduction” in Gabriel Badea-Päun, The Society Portrait: Painting, Prestige and the Pursuit of Elegance (London: Thames and Hudson, 2007), 9-11.
[4] A. Reynolds Morse, Dalí’s Animal Crackers (St. Petersburg, Florida: Salvador Dalí Museum, 1993), viii.
[5] Shearer West, Portraiture (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 21.
[6] Salvador Dalí, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (New York, Dover Publications Inc., 1993), 333.
[7] Dalí, The Secret Life, 333.
[8] Frank Crowninshield, “Portrait Painters of Today,” Vogue, Jan. 1, 1939, 54.
[9] Crowninshield, 90. This is something of a misnomer, as few of these artists were actually Parisians.
[10] Meredith Etherington-Smith, The Persistence of Memory: A Biography of Dalí (Boston: Da Capo Press, 1995), 287.
[11] Salvador Dalí (as Felipe Jacinto), “The Last Scandal of Salvador Dalí,” Salvador Dalí, exh. cat. (New York: Julien Levy Gallery, 1941), 2.
[12] Maxwell, “Dalí-ing with Democracy,” New York Post, April 23, 1943, 12.
[13] Dawn Ades, Dalí (London: Thames and Hudson, World of Art series, 1995), 6.
[14] André Breton, Anthology of Black Humour, ed. Mark Polizzotti (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997), 323.
[15] André Breton [1943], “Situation of Surrealism Between the Two Wars,” in What is Surrealism? Selected Writings (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1978), 243.
[16] Cowles, 228.
[17] Stephen C. Jordan, Bohemian Rogue: The Life of Hollywood Artist John Decker (Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2004), 39-40.
[18] Dennis Crockett, German Post-Expressionism: The Art of the Great Disorder 1918-1924 (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 1.
[19] Salvador Dalí, Dalí on Modern Art: The Cuckolds of Antiquated Modern Art, trans. Haakon M. Chevalier (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1996), 32.
[20] Cowles, 118.
[21] Cowles, 118.
[22] Michael Bliss, book review of Duncan McDowell, Steel at the Sault – Francis H. Clergue, Sir James Dunn, and the Algoma Steel Corporation 1901 – 1956, in Report on Business Magazine, July/August, 1985, 88.
[23] Cowles, 224.
[24] See Lindy Woodhead, War Paint: Madame Helena Rubinstein and Miss Elizabeth Arden: Their Lives, Their Times, Their Rivalry (Wiley: 2004), Chapter Seventeen.
[25] Cowles, 225.
[26] A. Reynolds Morse, Reynolds Morse Journals, vol. 1, 211. Accessed from a file at the Dalí Museum library and archive, St. Petersburg, Florida.
[27] Staff writer, “Her Dalí No Dilly?”, The Brooklyn Eagle, Wed. August 25, 1954.
[28] Cowles, 223.
[29] Cowles, 134.
[30] Cowles, 118.
[31] Morse, Reynolds Morse Journals, vol. 1, 214.
[32] Ades, 6.
[33] Salvador Dalí, Diary of a Genius, entry for August 13th, 1953 (London: Picador, 1976), 99.
[34] Cowles, 228; Staff writer, New York Sun, 16 April, 1943, as quoted in Ian Gibson, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí (London: Faber and Faber, 1997), 423.
[35] Salvador Dalí, The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dalí, trans. Harold J. Salemson (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1976), 255.
[36] Cowles, 220, fn 1.
[37] Morse, Reynolds Morse Journals, vol. 1, 212.
[38] Telephone interview by Julia Pine with Linda Leonard, Jan. 20, 2011.
[39] Salvador Dalí, “Dalí to the Reader,” in Dalí, exh. cat., M. Knoedler and Company Gallery (New York: 1943), 4.
[40] Dalí, The Secret Life, 394.
[41] Staff writer, “Rapport of Fatality,” Newsweek, April 26, 1943, 82.
[42] Telephone interview conducted by Julia Pine with Evette Suero Talkish, October 30, 2015.
[43] Dalí, The Secret Life, 147-48.
[44] Telephone interview by Julia Pine with Vere Gaynor, August 7, 2011.
[45] Dalí, The Unspeakable Confessions, 208-09.
[46] See Margaretta Salinger, Flowers: The Flower Piece in European Painting (Harper & Bros., New York, 1949), held in the archives of The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Figueres, Spain.
[47] Cowles, 223.
[48] See entry for Portrait of Alma Walker Coe and her Daughter Ann McKeever, 1959, Chapter 5.
[49] See entry for Portrait of Mrs. Ortíz Liñares, 1942, Chapter 2.
[50] Gene S. Helfman, “John Carmon Briggs,” in Copeia, Journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, 2002, available at http://www.jstor.org/pss/1447950, n.p.
[51] The daughter of this subject requested that we not print this story about her mother, as such, while the portrait in question is in the book, we have cited this story anonymously.
[52] Ali MacGraw, Moving Pictures (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), 86.
[53] A. Reynolds Morse, A Dalí Primer (Cleveland, Ohio: The Reynolds Morse Foundation, 1970), 5.
[54] See Bernard Ewell Art Appraisers, LLC, website, homepage and Lectures and Seminars section, http://bernardewell.com/.
[55] Reynolds Morse, Reynolds Morse Journals, vol. 1, 214.
[1] Fleur Cowles, The Case of Salvador Dalí (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1959), 223.
[2] Staff writer, Samedi-Soir, 21-27, June, 1952, author’s translation, as reproduced in Montse Aguer, Dalí and the Magazines, exh. cat. (Figueres: Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, 2008), 39.
[3] Richard Ormond, “Introduction” in Gabriel Badea-Päun, The Society Portrait: Painting, Prestige and the Pursuit of Elegance (London: Thames and Hudson, 2007), 9-11.
[4] A. Reynolds Morse, Dalí’s Animal Crackers (St. Petersburg, Florida: Salvador Dalí Museum, 1993), viii.
[5] Shearer West, Portraiture (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 21.
[6] Salvador Dalí, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (New York, Dover Publications Inc., 1993), 333.
[7] Dalí, The Secret Life, 333.
[8] Frank Crowninshield, “Portrait Painters of Today,” Vogue, Jan. 1, 1939, 54.
[9] Crowninshield, 90. This is something of a misnomer, as few of these artists were actually Parisians.
[10] Meredith Etherington-Smith, The Persistence of Memory: A Biography of Dalí (Boston: Da Capo Press, 1995), 287.
[11] Salvador Dalí (as Felipe Jacinto), “The Last Scandal of Salvador Dalí,” Salvador Dalí, exh. cat. (New York: Julien Levy Gallery, 1941), 2.
[12] Maxwell, “Dalí-ing with Democracy,” New York Post, April 23, 1943, 12.
[13] Dawn Ades, Dalí (London: Thames and Hudson, World of Art series, 1995), 6.
[14] André Breton, Anthology of Black Humour, ed. Mark Polizzotti (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997), 323.
[15] André Breton [1943], “Situation of Surrealism Between the Two Wars,” in What is Surrealism? Selected Writings (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1978), 243.
[16] Cowles, 228.
[17] Stephen C. Jordan, Bohemian Rogue: The Life of Hollywood Artist John Decker (Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2004), 39-40.
[18] Dennis Crockett, German Post-Expressionism: The Art of the Great Disorder 1918-1924 (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 1.
[19] Salvador Dalí, Dalí on Modern Art: The Cuckolds of Antiquated Modern Art, trans. Haakon M. Chevalier (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1996), 32.
[20] Cowles, 118.
[21] Cowles, 118.
[22] Michael Bliss, book review of Duncan McDowell, Steel at the Sault – Francis H. Clergue, Sir James Dunn, and the Algoma Steel Corporation 1901 – 1956, in Report on Business Magazine, July/August, 1985, 88.
[23] Cowles, 224.
[24] See Lindy Woodhead, War Paint: Madame Helena Rubinstein and Miss Elizabeth Arden: Their Lives, Their Times, Their Rivalry (Wiley: 2004), Chapter Seventeen.
[25] Cowles, 225.
[26] A. Reynolds Morse, Reynolds Morse Journals, vol. 1, 211. Accessed from a file at the Dalí Museum library and archive, St. Petersburg, Florida.
[27] Staff writer, “Her Dalí No Dilly?”, The Brooklyn Eagle, Wed. August 25, 1954.
[28] Cowles, 223.
[29] Cowles, 134.
[30] Cowles, 118.
[31] Morse, Reynolds Morse Journals, vol. 1, 214.
[32] Ades, 6.
[33] Salvador Dalí, Diary of a Genius, entry for August 13th, 1953 (London: Picador, 1976), 99.
[34] Cowles, 228; Staff writer, New York Sun, 16 April, 1943, as quoted in Ian Gibson, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí (London: Faber and Faber, 1997), 423.
[35] Salvador Dalí, The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dalí, trans. Harold J. Salemson (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1976), 255.
[36] Cowles, 220, fn 1.
[37] Morse, Reynolds Morse Journals, vol. 1, 212.
[38] Telephone interview by Julia Pine with Linda Leonard, Jan. 20, 2011.
[39] Salvador Dalí, “Dalí to the Reader,” in Dalí, exh. cat., M. Knoedler and Company Gallery (New York: 1943), 4.
[40] Dalí, The Secret Life, 394.
[41] Staff writer, “Rapport of Fatality,” Newsweek, April 26, 1943, 82.
[42] Telephone interview conducted by Julia Pine with Evette Suero Talkish, October 30, 2015.
[43] Dalí, The Secret Life, 147-48.
[44] Telephone interview by Julia Pine with Vere Gaynor, August 7, 2011.
[45] Dalí, The Unspeakable Confessions, 208-09.
[46] See Margaretta Salinger, Flowers: The Flower Piece in European Painting (Harper & Bros., New York, 1949), held in the archives of The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Figueres, Spain.
[47] Cowles, 223.
[48] See entry for Portrait of Alma Walker Coe and her Daughter Ann McKeever, 1959, Chapter 5.
[49] See entry for Portrait of Mrs. Ortíz Liñares, 1942, Chapter 2.
[50] Gene S. Helfman, “John Carmon Briggs,” in Copeia, Journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, 2002, available at http://www.jstor.org/pss/1447950, n.p.
[51] The daughter of this subject requested that we not print this story about her mother, as such, while the portrait in question is in the book, we have cited this story anonymously.
[52] Ali MacGraw, Moving Pictures (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), 86.
[53] A. Reynolds Morse, A Dalí Primer (Cleveland, Ohio: The Reynolds Morse Foundation, 1970), 5.
[54] See Bernard Ewell Art Appraisers, LLC, website, homepage and Lectures and Seminars section, http://bernardewell.com/.
[55] Reynolds Morse, Reynolds Morse Journals, vol. 1, 214.
