Description
Artist: Salvador Dali
Title: Petite Chouette (Little Owl)
Medium: Color Etching
Size: Image: 7" x 5"
Edition: 136/200
Years: 1968
Inscription: SIgned lower right
Condition: Very good quality overall
Documentation: Includes Gallery Certificate of Authenticity
Spanish artist Salvador Dalí is considered one of the most famous Surrealist artists. While alive, his eccentric appearance and flamboyance often obscured his true artistic genius and stirred controversy. However, today his art is celebrated worldwide for its striking and bizarre imagery. Dalí was prolific in painting, graphic arts, film, sculpture, photography, and even design.
As a surrealist, Dalí sought to capture the creative potential of the unconscious through strange and dream-like compositions. Specifically, his artworks focused on fantasies, the subconscious, sexuality, religion, and science. His style is instantly recognizable by his juxtaposition and deformation of objects set in bizarre and irrational landscapes. His meticulous approach to detail created almost realistic renditions with symbols alluding to Freudian theories of the unconsciousness and the dream state. However, his works included images with symbolic significance only to him.
Petite Chouette (Little Owl) illustrates an owl perched on a branch with the moon and stars in the background. The color etching is not a typical Dali Surrealist image as here he used a more figurative style rather than his characteristic deformations and bizarre imagery. However, the artwork still embraces the dream-like qualities prominent in Surrealism and Dali’s body of work. It is important to note how the work displays Dali’s slow move away from Surrealism that started around 1950. Later in his career, Dali embraced his developing interest in science, history, and religion. Two versions of the owl exist, the first edition printed in 1966 on white paper and the second edition with a blue background.
Petite Chouette (Little Owl) includes a gallery certificate of authenticity. The work is signed on the lower right. Furthermore, the artwork is of very good quality overall.
This piece is currently not framed. The photo showing the frame is a mockup of a frame and what it would look like framed. If you would like the piece framed we can work with our local framer at our discounted price to pick out the perfect frame for your home.
About Salvador Dali
Dali was born in Figueres, Spain, in 1904. His family recognized his talent and encouraged his artistic pursuits form an early age. In 1917, Dali’s father hosted an exhibition of charcoal drawings in their home, and the following year Dali held his first public exhibition at the Theatre in Figueres. The Theatre was later purchased by Dali in 1960 and turned into a museum to showcase the impressive collection of his life’s work. In 1922, Dali moved to Madrid to study at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, where he began to gain recognize for his cubist works and his eccentric personal style. In 1927, Dali held his first solo art exhibition in Barcelona. The exhibition was well received by both the public and critics.
Until 1929, Dali experimented with a variety of styles. While some themes in his early work repeated throughout his art career, he was not considered a surrealist until 1929 when he officially joined the surrealist group. In 1931, Dali painted “Persistence of Memory” featuring melting clocks. The painting would not go on only to be Dali’s best-known work, but it also became the most well-known surrealist work of all time. Despite his iconic surrealist works; however, tension grew Dali and the surrealist group. Dali’s work was considerably less political than many of his left leaning contemporaries, and he maintained the position that surrealism can and should exist separately from politics. Later, other members of the surrealist group would continue to criticize Dali’s work for his commercial appeal. During the 1930’s, Dali became increasingly interested in large scale installation works including his 1939 “Dreams of Venus” which debuted at the New York World’s Fair.
In 1989, Dali passed away from heart failure. Dali was buried in a crypt under the stage at his museum at the Theatre in Figueres. The final years of his life were spent continuing to create ate and work on his museum.