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Artist or Maker: Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

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Description: Femmes métamorphosées - Les sept arts
signed and dated 'Dalí 1957' (lower right)
oil on canvas
28 3/8 x 35 3/4 in. (72 x 92.5 cm.)
Painted in 1957

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Provenance: Billy Rose, New York.
Galerie de l'Elysée (Alex Maguy), Paris.
Acquired by the present owner circa 1974.

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Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Alex Maguy, 7 tableaux de Dalí, May - June 1973.
Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Dalí, July - September 1984, no. 36 (illustrated p. 153).
Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Dalí, April - June 1989, no. 2 (illustrated p. 87).
Tokyo, Mitsukoshi Museum of Art, Dalí Exhibition, October - November 1991; this exhibition later travelled to Nagoya, Mitsukoshi, January 1992, Osaka, Mitsukoshi, January - February 1992, Sapporo, Mitsukoshi, February 1992, and Matsuyama, Mitsukoshi, March - April 1992.
Cortina d'Ampezzo, Galleria Farsetti, Dalí all'Eternitá, August 2004, no. 8 (illustrated in colour p. 31); this exhibition later travelled to Milan, Galleria Farsetti, September - October 2004.

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Published: R. Descharnes & G. Néret, Salvador Dalí 1904-1989, The Paintings, vol. II, 1946-1989, Cologne, 1994, no. 1105 (illustrated p. 493).

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Notes: THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTOR

Executed in 1957, Femmes métamorphosées- Les sept arts is an extraordinary work belonging to a series of paintings on the theme of the seven arts, which relate to one of the few completed projects Dalí produced during these years. In 1944 Dalí was commissioned by the theatrical impresario Billy Rose to produce a series of paintings on the theme of the seven lively arts for the lobby of the Ziegfeld theatre in New York. These were to accompany Cole Porter's The Seven Lively Arts, Rose's new theatrical extravaganza which opened in December 1944. In 1957 a fire in the theatre destroyed all the paintings and Rose commissioned Dalí to paint a number of replacement pictures of which Femmes métamorphosées is one.

The Seven Lively Arts was Rose's opening show for the legendary Ziegfeld Theater, which he had purchased, and he clearly knew that involving Dalí (along with Porter, Igor Stravinsky and Benny Goodman) would help make it go with a bang. The musical took the form of seven acts, representing seven Muses and therefore seven disciplines, as did Dalí's paintings. The Seven Arts pictures show Dalí's fascination with the razzmatazz world of showbiz, and also by extension with the culture of the United States. Of the seven arts that Dalí represented in this series, several appear overtly linked to their theme either in terms of content or of title, for instance Grand Opéra, La danse, La musique - L'orchestre rouge and Rhapsodie moderne. In this context, the strange insect and lobster figures of Femmes métamorphosées - Les sept arts can be seen as a Dalinian representation of ballet (for the ballet in Rose's production, Stravinsky wrote the score), with the various hybrid and anthropomorphised animals shown in their tutus.

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