Object Information

Salvador Dalí
Spanish, 1904-1989

Inventions of the Monsters, 1937

Oil on canvas
20 1/4 x 30 7/8 in. (51.4 x 78.4 cm)
none
Joseph Winterbotham Collection, 1943.798

© 2008 Salvador Dali, Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Salvador Dalí, Surrealism's most publicized practitioner, created monstrous visions of a world turned inside out, which he made more compelling through his extraordinary technical skills. Upon the Art Institute's acquisition of the painting, Dalí wrote: “The apparition of monsters presages the outbreak of war. The canvas was painted . . . near Vienna a few months before the Anschluss and has a prophetic character. Horse women equal maternal river monsters. Flaming giraffe equals Masculine apocalyptic monster. Cat angel equals divine heterosexual monster. Hourglass equals metaphysical monster. Gala and Dalí equal sentimental monster.”

While the artist's description is as enigmatic as the painting, it does help to decipher this haunting work, rife with threats of danger, from the fire in the distance to the sibyl with an hourglass, a symbol of the transience of life, seated next to Dalí and his wife, Gala, in the foreground.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Paris, Renou et Colle, July 6-30, 1937.
Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, Paintings in the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. James Thrall Soby, November 1940.

New York, Museum of Modern Art, Paintings, Drawings, Prints: Salvador Dalí, 1941, pp. 26, 28, 62, fig. 33
Chicago, The Art Institute, The Winterbotham Collection, May 23-June 22, 1947, pp. 12-3 (ill.).
Denver, Art Museum, The Modern Artist and His World, March 6-April 27, 1949, p. 11 (ill.).

Dallas, Museum of Fine Arts, The Winterbotham Colleciton of 20tth Century Art, October. 8-November 6, 1949.

Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Reality and Fantasy, 1900-1954, May 23-July 2, 1954, no. 44.
New York, Gallery of Modern Art, Salvador Dalí 1910-1965, December 18-February 28, 1966, no. 86.

Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuninge, Dalí, November 21, 1970-January 10, 1971, no. 56.
Baden-Baden, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Dalí. Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Objekte, Schmuck, January 29-April 18, 1971, no. 44.

Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Salvador Dalí. Retrospective, December 18, 1979-April 21, 1980, no. 249.

Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie, Salvador Dalí, May 12-July 23, 1989, no. 196; traveled to Zurich, Kunsthaus, August 18- October. 22, 1989, Louisiana, Museum of Modern Art, December 16, 1989-March 11, 1990, and Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts, April 13-July 29, 1990.

Tokyo, ASAHI Shimbun, Masterworks of Modern Art from The Art Institute of Chicago, no. 39, pp. 126–7 (ill.); traveled to Nagaoka, Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, April 20, 1994–May 29, 1995; Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, June 10–July 24, 1994: Yokohama Museum of Art, August 6 1994–September 25, 1994.

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Salvador Dalí, February 6–May 15, 2005.

Publication History

“Dalí’s Heterosexual Monster Invades Chicago,” Art Digest 18 (October. 1943), p.13.

James Thrall Soby and Museum of Modern Art, Salvador Dalí (New York, 1946) pp. 21, 23, 62 (ill.).

Juan Antonio Nuño, Salvador Dalí. Con cuartro ilustraciones en color y cuarenta y ocho en negro (Barcelona, 1950), fig. 27.

“Salvador Dalí. Die Erfindung der Ungeheuer.” Du 11 (November 1952), p.34.

Catalog of Works by Salvador Dalí in Public Museum Collections (Cleveland, 1956 ), p. 41 (ill.).

Art Institute, El Mundo de los Museos: Instituto de arte de Chicago: presentación de Charles C. Cunningham (Buenos Aires, 1967), p. 15 (ill.) fig. 71, and pp. 75, 76–7 (ill.) as Inventos de los monstruos.

Harvard H. Arnason, History of Modern Art (New York, 1968), no. 163.

Robert Descarnes, Salvador Dalí, The Library of Great Painters (New York, 1976), p. 121 (ill.).

Dalí. La obra y la personalidad de un opintor en tantos aspectos desconcertante (Barcelona, 1980), no. 19.

Robert Descarnes, Salvador Dalí: The Work, the Man (New York, 1984), p. 213 (ill).

Wieland Schmied, Salvador Dalí. Das Rätsel der Begierde (Munich, 1991), fig. 11.

Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí 1904-1989. Das Malerische Werk, vol. 1 (Cologne, 1993), p. 292 (ill).

Art Institute, The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies: The Joseph Winterbotham Collection, 20, no. 2 (1994), p. 169 (ill.).

Fiona Bradley, “Doubling and Dédoublement: Gala in Dalí,” Art History 17, no. 4 (December 1994), pp. 612-30, 618 (ill).

Haim Finkelstein, Salvador Dalí’s Art and Writing, 1927-1942 (Cambridge, 1996), fig. 75.
Ian Gibson, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí (London, 1997) p.376.

Salvador Dalí. A Guide to His Works in Public Museums (Clevelend, 1974) p.4 4(ill.).

Ownership History

Mr. and Mrs. James T. Soby Collection, Farmington, Conneticut, by 1940 [Hartford 1940]. Durlacher Brothers, New York, by 1943. Sold to Art Institute, July 12, 1943.