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Artist or Maker: Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

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Description: Le petit tigre hallucinogène or 50 peintures abstraites qui, vues de trois mètres, se transforment en trois félins déguisés en chinois, et vues de neuf mètres apparaît la tête
signed and dated 'Salvador Dalí 63' (lower right)
gouache and pencil on card
23 x 26 1/8 in. (58.3 x 66.5 cm.)
Executed in 1963

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Provenance: Collection Perrot-Moore, Cadaquès.

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Exhibited: Vienna, Auersperg Palace, Salvador Dalí, Bilder, Zeichnungen, Objekte, Eine Ausstellung des Museu Perrot-Moore, Cadaquès, March - April 1982, no. 88 (illustrated). This exhibition later travelled to Munich, May - July 1982; Zurich, Seedam-Kulturzentrum, December 1982 - January 1983.
Perpignan, Palais des Rois de Majorque, Dalí à Perpignan, August - September 1982, no. 87 (illustrated).
Toulouse, Réfectoire des Jacobins, Salvador Dalí, Huiles, Dessins, Sculptures, November 1983 - January 1984 (illustrated).
Buenos Aires, Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo, Dalí en Argentina, June - July 1986 (illustrated).
São Paulo, Museu de Arte Moderna, Dalí no Brasil, September - October 1986 (illustrated in colour).
Vascoeil, Château de Vascoeil, Centre d'Art et d'Histoire, Salvador Dalí, July - October 2001.

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Notes: This work is sold with a photo-certificate from Robert and Nicolas Descharnes. It is archived under no. d 3483.

Executed in 1963, this work is a preparatory composition for the oil of the same title and date now housed at the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Figueres. The Small Hallucinogenic Tiger combines Dalí's sense of humour, his love of the fantastical, and his increasing interest in science and in optics. The appearance of this work, with its patchwork of colour fields, each appearing as an abstract entity in its own right, imitates a range of styles that hint at Op Art and Action Painting, and deliberately apes and mocks the contemporary artists of the time. At the same time, yet, these abstractions, seen from a distance, combine to form a group of images of cats disguised as Chinamen, and then, from a greater distance, form the dominant image of a tiger.

The layers of imagery hint at Dalí's interest in the atomic, which greatly influenced him after the detonations of Nuclear bombs both in anger and in test situations, from 1945 onwards. The tiger is an almost religious presence, an overarching symbol reminiscent of William Blake's 'Tyger'. In Dalí's cosmogony, the random elements that comprise the basest atomic elements - in this case, the abstract pictures - are tied into the fabric of the world, linked first to the surrealistic vision of cats disguised as people, and then to the greater, all-encompassing tiger of the title. One wonders, though, about this tiger: it does not appear to be a protector, but instead acts as a predator, baring its fangs. The devil here is not in the detail, but is built up of a massive conglomeration of details.

The Hallucinogenic Tiger uses optical imagery and scientific ideas to present the viewer with what amounts to an almost theological proposition. Conversely, the picture can be read the other way, with the tiger broken down, on closer inspection, first into the strange disguised felines and subsequently, at the 'atomic' level, into a crazy and chaotic mess of seemingly random areas of colour.

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.