About This Artwork
Salvador Dalí
Spanish, 1904-1989
Mae West's Face which May be Used as a Surrealist Apartment, 1934-35
Gouache, with graphite, on commercially printed magazine page
283 x 178 mm (sight)
Inscribed recto, lower right: "Salvador Dali"
Gift of Mrs. Charles B. Goodspeed, 1949.517
Prints and Drawings
Not on Display
Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories
Exhibition History
The Art Institute of Chicago, "17th International Exhibition of Watercolors", April 28-May 30, 1938, cat. 127 (ill.).
Chicago, The Arts Club, "Salvador Dalí," May 23-June 14, 1941, cat. 27.
Winnetka, Ill., New Trier High School, April 23-May 19, 1952.
Highland Park, Ill., Highland Park Library, June 6-July 9, 1952.
Brussels, IXe Festival Belge d'Eté, "Savador Dalí," July 1-September 10, 1956, p. 8, cat. 37 (ill.).
Chicago, The Arts Club, "Surrealism: Then and Now," October 1-30, 1958.
The Art Institute of Chicago, "The Artist Looks at People," November 13, 1958-January 11, 1959.
Philadelphia, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, "Improbable Furniture," March 10-April 10, 1977, p. 10 (ill.); traveled to La Jolla, Calif., La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, May 20-July 6, 1977.
Paris, Centre Pompidou, "Salvador Dalí", 1979, p. 274, cat. 208.
The Art Institute of Chicago, "Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper," March 24-September 13, 2009, no cat.
Publication History
"International Watercolorists," Art News, 36 (May 14, 1938), p. 12 (ill.).
Frank Getlein, "The Artist Looks at People: Portrait Show at The Art Institute of Chicago," Art In America, XLVI (Winter 1958-1959), pp. 65-66 (ill.).
Franz Schulze, "Portraiture at the Institute," Art News LVII (January 1959), p. 49 (ill.).
Fleur Cowles. Case of Dali (London, 1959), p. 219 (ill.).
Salvador Dalí, Secret Life of Dalí (New York, 1961) (ill.).
Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1961), p. 113.
Sarane Alexandrian, L'art surréaliste (Paris, 1969), pl. 98.
Albert R. Morse, Salvador Dalí: A Guide to His Works in Public Museums (Cleveland, 1974), p. 5 (ill.).
Robert Storr, “For Sale: The Elizabeth Goodspeed Chapman Collection,” The Connoisseur 206:82 (February 1981), p. 134 (ill.).
"Si tu joues au Génie, tu le deviens," Connaissance des Arts, 501 (December 1993), p. 96 (ill.).
Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí, 1904-1989: the paintings, 1904-1946 (Cologne, 1997), pp. 244-245 and 754, no. 554 (ill.).
Dawn Ades, Dali: The Centenary Retrospective, exh. cat. (London, 2004), p. 284, fig. 1.
Ownership History
Sold by the artist to Mrs. Charles Goodspeed (née Elizabeth Fuller, later Mrs. Gilbert Chapman; 1893–1980), Chicago, around 1941 [according to letter from Mrs. Goodspeed dated June 8, 1970 in the curatorial file]; given to the Art Institute, 1949.