THE COLLECTION
Retrospective Bust of a Woman
Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904-1989)
1933 (some elements reconstructed 1970). Painted porcelain, bread, corn, feathers, paint on paper, beads, ink stand, sand, and two pens, 29 x 27 1/4 x 12 5/8" (73.9 x 69.2 x 32 cm). Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest and gift of Philip Johnson (both by exchange). © 2010 Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
301.1992
The Erotic Object: Surrealist Sculpture from the Collection
June 24, 2009–January 4, 2010
In 1931 Dalí described Surrealist sculpture as "absolutely useless and created wholly for the purpose of materializing in a fetishistic way, with maximum tangible reality, ideas and fantasies of a delirious character." Made just a few years after this provocative statement, Retrospective Bust of a Woman not only presents a woman as an object, but explicitly as one to be consumed. A long phallic baguette crowns her head, cobs of corns dangle around her neck, and ants swarm along her forehead as if gathering crumbs. When this work was exhibited in 1933, Pablo Picasso's dog is reputed to have eaten the original loaf of bread.
Dalí: Painting and Film
June 29–September 15, 2008
Like other Surrealists, Dalí constructed sculpture from disparate found objects. The genesis of this work was his discovery of an inkwell featuring the figures from Jean-Francois Millet's painting The Angelus (1857–59). He embedded the inkwell in a loaf of bread and placed them both on an accessorized bust. The necklace is a strip of repeating images from a zoetrope, a precinematic toy that provides the illusion of movement as it rotates.
If you are interested in reproducing images from The Museum of Modern Art web site, please visit the Image Permissions page (www.moma.org/permissions). For additional information about using content from MoMA.org, please visit About this Site (www.moma.org/site).
© Copyright 2009 The Museum of Modern Art