Salvador Dalí, Surrealism’s most publicized practitioner, created monstrous visions of a world turned inside out, which he made even more compelling through his extraordinary technical skills. When the Art Institute acquired Inventions of the Monsters in 1943, the artist wrote his congratulations and explained:
“According to Nostradamus the apparition of monsters presages the outbreak of war. The canvas was painted in the Semmering mountains near Vienna a few months before the Anschluss [the 1938 political union of Austria and Germany] 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. The little blue dog is not a true monster.”
Inventions of the Monsters has an ominous mood. It is rife with threats of danger, from the menacing fire in the distance to the sibylline figure in the foreground with an hourglass and a butterfly, both symbols of the inevitability of death. Next to this figure sit Dalí and his wife and muse, Gala. With his native Catalonia embroiled in the Spanish Civil War, the artist surely felt great anxiety over a world without a safe haven, a world that indeed had allowed for the invention of monsters.
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.
James Thrall Soby, Paintings, Drawings, Prints: Salvador Dalí, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1941), 26, 28, 62, cat. 33 (ill), as Inventions of the monsters.
“Dalí’s Heterosexual Monster Invades Chicago,” Art Digest 18 (Oct. 1943), 13, as Inventions of the Monsters.
Sydney J. Harris, “It’s Confusing, It’s Amusing—It’s Dali’s Art,” Daily News (Chicago, Oct. 8, 1943), as Inventions of the Monsters.
“Recent Dalí Canvas at the Art Institute Stirs Mixture of Emotions,” Chicago Tribune (Oct. 9, 1943), 17, as Inventions of the Monsters.
“Reports of the Departments for 1943,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 38.3 (Mar. 1944), 9, 142 (ill.), as Inventions of the Monsters.
James Thrall Soby and Museum of Modern Art, Salvador Dalí (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1946), 21, 23, 62 (ill.).
The Winterbotham Collection, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1947), 12, 13 (ill.).
The Modern Artist and His World, exh. cat. (Denver: Denver Art Museum, 1949), 11 (ill.).
Juan Antonio Nuño, Salvador Dalí. Con cuartro ilustraciones en color y cuarenta y ocho en negro (Barcelona: Ediciones Omega, 1950), fig. 27.
“Salvador Dalí, Die Erfindung der Ungeheuer,” Du 11 (Nov. 1952), 34.
Catalog of Works by Salvador Dalí in Public Museum Collections (Cleveland: Privately printed for the Reynolds-Morse Foundation, 1956 ), 41 (ill.).
Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), 112-113, as Inventions of the Monsters.
Art Institute of Chicago, El Mundo de los Museos: Instituto de arte de Chicago: presentación de Charles C. Cunningham (Buenos Aires: Picadilly Press, 1967), 15, 75, 76-7 (ill.), fig. 71, as Inventos de los monstruos.
Harvard H. Arnason, History of Modern Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1968), 360, 375, cat. 163 (ill.).
R. Hammacher Van den Brande and L. Brandt Corstius, Dali, exh. cat. (Rotterdam, Netherlands: Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, 1970), cat. 56 (ill.), as De uitvindingen van de monsters.
Dali: Gemälde, Zeichn., Objekte, Schmuck exh. cat. (Baden-Baden, Germany: Staatliche Kunsthalle, 1971), 128-9, cat. 44 (ill.) as Die Erfindung der Ungeheuer.
Alan G. Artner, “ A Flowering Show of Landscapes,” Chicago Tribune (August 18, 1974), 5 (ill.).
Salvador Dalí: A Guide to His Works in Public Museums (Cleveland: The Dalí Museum for the Reynolds Morse Foundation, 1974), 44 (ill.).
Tadeo Ogura and Robert Descharnes, Dalí, (Tokyo: Shueisha, 1974), 112 (ill) cat 42 (ill.), as Les Inventions des Monstres.
Robert Descharnes and Salvador Dalí, The Library of Great Painters (New York: Harry N. Abrams), 120, cat. 28 (ill.).
Whitney Chadwick, Myth in Surrealist Painting 1929-1939 (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1980), 38.
Pontus Hulten, Salvador Dalí. Retrospective, exh. cat, (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1980), 309, cat. 249 (ill.), as L’Invention des monstres.
Dalí. La obra y la personalidad de un opintor en tantos aspectos desconcertante (Barcelona, 1980), no. 19.
A. M. Hammacher, Phantoms of the Imagination (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1981), 307, cat. 283 (ill.).
Robert Descarnes, Salvador Dalí: The Work, the Man (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1984), 213 (ill.).
Meryle Secrest, Salvador Dalí (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1986), 217.
James Wood, The Joseph Winterbotham Collection: A Living Tradition (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1986), 11, 34 (ill.).
Pierre Théberge, ed. Salvador Dalí, exh. cat. (Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1990), 93, cat. 39, as The Invention of Monsters.
Wieland Schmied, Salvador Dalí. Das Rätsel der Begierde (Munich: Piper, 1991), 52, fig. 11 (ill.).
Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí 1904-1989. Das Malerische Werk, vol. 1 (Köln: Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 1993), 292 (ill), cat. 650 (ill.).
James Wood, ed. Treasures of 19th- and 20th-century Painting, the Art Institute of Chicago, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1993), 242 (ill.).
Jaime Brihuega, Miró y Dalí: Los grandes surrealistas (Grupo Anaya, 1993), p. 13 (ill.), as La invención de los monstruos.
Margherita Andreotti, “The Joseph Winterbotham Collection,” in The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 20, no. 2 (1994), 169 (ill.).
Fiona Bradley, “Doubling and Dédoublement: Gala in Dalí,” Art History 17, no. 4 (December 1994), 612-30, 618 (ill.).
Masterworks of Modern Art from The Art Institute of Chicago, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1994), 126-127, cat. 39 (ill.).
Sandy Ballatore, Romantic Modernism, 100 Years (Santa Fe, NM: Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico, 1994), 9 (ill.).
Martica Sawin, Surrealism in Exile (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 41-2 (ill.).
Dawn Ades, Dalí (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1995), 114, cat. 89 (ill.)
Haim Finkelstein, Salvador Dalí’s Art and Writing, 1927-1942 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 240, fig. 75 (ill.).
Edmund Swinglehurst, Salvador Dalí: Exploring the Irrational (New York: Todtri, 1996), 78 (ill.), as The Invention of Monsters.
Ian Gibson, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí (London: Faber and Faber, 1997) 376, as Invention of Monsters.
Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí, 1904-1989: The Paintings (Köln: Taschen, 1997), 292, 757, cat. 650 (ill.), as The Invention of the Monsters.
Dawn Ades, ed. Dalí’s Optical Illusions (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 53, 58, 61, as The Invention of the Monsters.
Dawn Ades and Michael R. Taylor, Dalí, exh. cat. (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2004), 274-275, cat. 169 (ill.).
Gerhard Kolberg, Salvador Dalí: La Gare de Perpignan Pop, Op, Yes-yes, Pompier, exh. cat., (Köln: Museum Ludwig Köln, 2006) 51, cat. 56 (ill.), as L’invention des monstres.
Matthew Gale, ed. Dalí and Film exh. cat. (New York: Tate, 2007), 143, 153.
Eric Shanes, The Life and Masterworks of Salvador Dalí (New York: Parkstone International, 2010), 180-181 (ill.), as Invention of the Monsters.
Douglas Druick, Master Paintings In the Art Institute of Chicago (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), 132 (ill.).
Salvador Dalí Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (1910-1964) (Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, 2014: http://www.salvador-dali.org/cataleg_raonat), Cat. 457 (ill.), as Invention de monstres.
Kyle MacMillan, “Art Institute Exhibit Hoping to Rescue Salvador Dali’s Artistic Reputation,” Chicago Sun Times, Feb. 15, 2002, 21.
Jacqui Palumbo, “Two art curators had a mystery on their hands. Was an unusual Dalí painting actually his?” CNN Style, Feb. 24, 2023, http://edition.cnn.com/style/article/salvador-dali-art-institute-of-chicago-dream-of-venus/index.html
Paris, Renou et Colle, Dali, July 6-30, 1937, no cat.
Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, Paintings in the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. James Thrall Soby, Nov. 1940, no cat.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Paintings, Drawings, Prints: Salvador Dalí, Nov. 19, 1941–Jan. 11, 1942, cat. 33.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Winterbotham Collection, May 23–June 22, 1947, no cat. no.
Denver Art Museum, The Modern Artist and His World, March 6–April 27, 1949, no cat. no.
Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (now Dallas Museum of Art), The Winterbotham Collection of 20th Century Art, Oct. 8–Nov. 6, 1949, no cat.
Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Reality and Fantasy, 1900-1954, May 23–July 2, 1954, cat. 44.
New York, Gallery of Modern Art, Salvador Dalí 1910-1965, Dec. 18 1965–Feb. 28, 1966, cat. 86
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne, Salvador Dalí: rétrospective 1920–1980, Dec. 18, 1979–Apr. 21, 1980, cat. 249.
Stuttgart, Germany, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Salvador Dalí, May 12–July 23, 1989, cat. 196; Kunsthaus Zürich, Aug. 18–Oct. 22, 1989; Humlebæk, Denmark, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Dec. 16, 1989–Mar. 11, 1990; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, April 13–July 29, 1990.
Nagaoka, Japan, Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Masterworks of Modern Art from The Art Institute of Chicago, Apr. 20, 1994–May 29, cat 39; Nagoya, Japan, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, June 10–July 24, 1994; Yokohama, Japan, Yokohama Museum of Art, Aug. 6 1994–Sept. 25, 1994.
Venice, Palazzo Grassi, Salvador Dalí, Sept. 12, 2004–Jan. 16, 2005; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Feb. 6–May 15, 2005 (Philadelphia only).
Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Masters from the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 6 2013–Feb. 16, 2014, no cat. no.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Salvador Dalí: The Image Disappears, Feb. 18–June 12, 2023, no cat.
James T. Soby (1906–1979) and Eleanor H. Bruce (born Eleanor Howland, 1905-1999, married, 1938-1952), Farmington, CT, by 1940 [Hartford 1940]. Durlacher Brothers, New York, by May 27, 1943 [letter from Daniel Catton Rich to Durlacher Brothers, May 27, 1943; copy in curatorial object file]; sold by partial exchange to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1943.
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