Salvador Dali Drawers of Memory is an original lithograph hand signed in pencil by the artist limited edition no. 23/150 published by Sidney Lucas and printed by Hollander’s Workshop Inc. New York. A very good, richly-inked impression, this large extremely scarce lithograph is in excellent condition references : The Official Catalog of The Graphic Works of Salvador Dali by Albert Field page 126 #65-2 Catalog Raisonne Michler and Lopsinger#1146 .
In 1965 Sidney and Phyllis Lucas became the first North American publishers of original signed limited edition lithographs by Salvador Dali. This collaboration by my parents continued until 1974 and The Lucille Lucas Gallery carries on the family tradition of offering these original works for sale.
Salvador Dali was enchanted with the theme of human figures with drawers. Many of Dali’s works, such as his sculpture Venus de Milo with Drawers (1936) and his painting Anthropomorphic Cabinet (1936) utilized this theme. Dali was influenced by the psychoanalytic theories of Freud, whom Dali revered and viewed his own subject matter as an allegorical means of tracing the countless narcissistic fragrances that waft up from every one of our drawers (as he put it). And he said that the sole difference between immortal Greece and the present day was Sigmund Freud, who had discovered that the human body, purely neo-Platonic at the time of the Greeks, was now full of secret drawers which only psychoanalysis could pull open. Dali was also familiar with the furniture figures made by the Mannerist Giovanni Battista Bracelli ( 17th century Italian ) and it seems apparent they influenced his own figures with drawers three centuries later . Bracelli’s furniture figures were a game played with geometry and space while for Dali a similar approach expressed the central, obsessive urge to understand human identity.
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis of Dalí de Púbol (11 May 1904 – 23 January 1989), was a Spanish surrealist artist of Catalan ethnicity born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. One of the most famous artists that has ever lived Dali was a prolific creator working in many mediums such as painting, sculpture, ceramics, jewelry, writing , multi media , photography and filmmaking to name a few. He had an eccentric personality and with his exceptional skill as a draftsman and his unusually imaginative view of the world Dali captured the attention of the public wherever his work was displayed. He created his own personal philosophy which he called paranoid critical a state in which one could simulate delusion while still maintaining one’s sanity which influenced the Surrealist movement. Dali’s world of tapping into the unconscious using symbolism filled with themes from religion, death, eroticism and decay has fascinated even those who were not frequent art lovers. Dali was a great showman and loved being adored by his public. But needless to say he had the talent to sustain his popularity even after his death.
