Untitled (Dream of Venus) formerly Visions of Eternity

1939

Salvador Dalí
Spanish, 1904–1989

Salvador Dalí painted this dream-like landscape punctuated by an uncanny portico and a disintegrating figure during the Spanish Civil War, when he went into an itinerant exile that brought him to London, Paris, and the United States, among other locales. While the desolation of the nearly featureless landscape gives the composition an overwhelming sense of infinitude, the two distinctly bean-shaped forms in the foreground demonstrate the artist’s continued focus on all things small, which he first outlined in his avant-garde “Poem of Little Things,” published in 1927. In relation to another painting “embellished with a few boiled beans,” Dalí later wrote in his memoir that “one could not imagine swallowing all that unconscious meat without the presence (however uninspiring) of some mealy and melancholy vegetable,” suggesting that he used the bean motif to lighten depictions of potentially sorrowful subjects, a part of his life-long concern with the palatability of his art.

Status: On View, Gallery 289
Department: Modern Art

Artist: Salvador Dalí
Title: Untitled (Dream of Venus) formerly Visions of Eternity
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.: 1939
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: none
Dimensions: 207 × 117.5 cm (81 1/2 × 46 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph R. Shapiro
Reference Number: 1987.318
Copyright: © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2018

Katherine Kuh and Dennis Adrian, The Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Randall Shapiro Collection, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1985), 45, fig. 30, cat. 32 (color ill.), 109, cat. 32, as Visions of Eternity, 1936/37.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report 1987-88, pp. 9, 71, pl. 15, as Vision of Eternity.
Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí 1904-1989. Das Malerische Werk, vol 1 (Cologne: Benedikt Taschen, 1993), 286, cat. 640, as Sans titre, connu comme Vision de l’éternité.
Werner Spies, La Revolution Surrealiste, exh. cat. (Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2002), 260 (color ill.), 433.
Dawn Ades, Michael R. Taylor, and Montserrat Aguer, Dalí: The Centenary Retrospective, exh. cat. (New York : Rizzoli ; Philadelphia : In association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2004), 279, cat. 171 (color ill.), as Untitled (Vision of Eternity, 1936-37).
Robert Rosenblum, Salvador Dalí: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Artforum, 43, no. 10 (Summer 2005), 320, (color ill.).
Stephanie D’Alessandro and Renée DeVoe Mertz, The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2014), 128 (color ill.).
Kyle MacMillan, “Art Institute Exhibit Hoping to Rescue Salvador Dali’s Artistic Reputation,” Chicago Sun Times, Feb. 15, 2002, 20 (color ill.), 21.
Jacqui Palumbo, “Two art curators had a mystery on their hands. Was an unusual Dalí painting actually his?” CNN Style, Feb. 24, 2023 (color ill.), http://edition.cnn.com/style/article/salvador-dali-art-institute-of-chicago-dream-of-venus/index.html

The Art Institute of Chicago, The Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Randall Shapiro Collection, Feb. 23-Apr. 14, 1985, cat. 32, as Visions of Eternity, 1936/37.
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, La Revolution Surrealiste, Feb. 27– June 24, 2002, no cat. no.; Dusseldorf, Kunstsammlung Nordhein-Westfahlen, July 20–Nov. 24, 2002, as Vision de l’éternité, 1936–1937.
Venice, Palazzo Grassi, Salvador Dalí, Sept. 12, 2004–Jan.16, 2005, cat. 171; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Feb. 6–May 15, 2005 (Philadelphia only), as Untitled (Vision of Eternity).
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., as Visions of Eternity.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Salvador Dalí: The Image Disappears, Feb. 18–June 12, 2023, no cat.

Commissioned by Dali World’s Fair (DWF) Company for the New York World’s Fair, Apr. 10, 1939 [DWF Co. contract, Apr. 10, 1939, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, copy in curatorial object file]. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph R. Shapiro, Chicago, by 1966 [Letter from Joseph Shapiro, Dec. 6, 1987, copy in curatorial object file]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1987.

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