Formation of the Monsters

1937

Salvador Dalí
Spanish, 1904-1989

Status: On View, Gallery 289
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Salvador Dalí
Title: Formation of the Monsters
Place: Spain (Artist's nationality)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1937
Medium: Pen and black ink on pink laid paper
Inscriptions: Titled, signed, and dated, lower right: "Formation des Monstres / Salvador Dali 1937"
Dimensions: 25.6 × 16.7 cm (10 1/8 × 6 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection
Reference Number: 2018.309
Copyright: © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2018

Robert Descharnes, Salvador Dali: The Work, The Man (New York, 1984), p. 212 (ill.).
Margherita Andreotti, “The Joseph Winterbotham Collection,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 20: 2 (1994), p. 168 (ill.).
Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret, Salvador Dali, 1904-1989, translated by Michael Hulse (Cologne, 1994), 1: pl. 651, 2: p. 757, no. 651, as “Creation of Monsters.”
Dawn Ades, with Margherita Andreotti and Adam Jolles, Surrealist Art: The Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1997), pp. 102–03, cat. 52 (color ill.).

Sussex, Worthing Art Gallery, “Paintings from the Edward James Collection,” 1963, cat. 67.
Brighton Art Gallery, “Thirty Years of Surrealist Painting from the Edward James Collection,” 1967, cat. 31.
Durham, Dunelm House, “Durham Surrealist Festival,” 1968, cat. 13, p. 15 (installation photo).
Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, “The Edward James Collection: Dali, Magritte, and Other Surrealists,” 1976, cat. 18.
Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, “Salvador Dali: Rétrospective, 1920-1980,” 1979-1980, cat. 247 (ill.).
London, The Tate Gallery, “Salvador Dali,” 1980, cat. 182.
Tokyo, Isetan Museum of Art, “Rétrospective Salvador Dali,” 1982, cat. 42 (ill.); also Osaka, Kitakyushu, and Hiroshima.
London, Robert Fraser Gallery and The Mayor Gallery, “Fifty Drawings by Salvador Dali from the Edward James Collection,” 1983, cat. 16 (cover ill.).
Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, “Dada and Surrealism in Chicago Collections,” 1984–1985, p. 133 (ill.).
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, “Salvador Dali, 1904-1989,” 1989, cat. 194 (ill.); also Zurich.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Salvador Dali: The Image Disappears”, February 18 - June 12, 2023.
Humlebaek, Denmark, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, “Salvador Dali,” 1989-1990, cat. 112 (ill.).
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, “Salvador Dali,” 1990, cat. 38 (ill.).

Probably sold by the artist to Edward James, West Dean Estate, Chichester, England, between 1937 and 1938 [a fax of June 20, 1995, from Sharon-Michi Kusunoki of the Edward James Foundation to Adam Jolles verified that James did not purchase this drawing from Levy’s 1939 exhibition. This implies that the drawing was one of the works James purchased under contract from the artist between June 1, 1937, and June 1, 1938, and that James loaned the work to Levy for his exhibition]; transferred to the Edward James Foundation, West Dean Estate, 1964; sold through The Mayor Gallery, London, to Lindy and Edwin Bergman, Chicago, 1983; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2018.

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