Among Salvador Dalí’s many memorable works, perhaps none is more deeply embedded in the popular imagination than Venus de Milo with Drawers, a half-size plaster reproduction of the famous marble statue (130 /120 BC; Musée du Louvre, Paris), altered with pompon-decorated drawers in the figure’s forehead, breasts, stomach, abdomen, and left knee. The combination of cool painted plaster and silky mink tufts illustrates the Surrealist interest in uniting different elements to spark a new reality. For the Surrealists, the best means of provoking this revolution of consciousness was a special kind of sculpture that, as Dalí explained in a 1931 essay, was “absolutely useless … and created wholly for the purpose of materializing in a fetishistic way, with maximum tangible reality, ideas and fantasies of a delirious character.” Dalí’s essay, which drew upon the ideas of Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, inaugurated object making as an integral part of Surrealist activities.
Influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud, Dalì envisioned the idea of a cabinet transformed into a female figure, which he called an “anthropomorphic cabinet.” Venus de Milo with Drawers is the culmination of his explorations into the deep, psychological mysteries of sexual desire, which are symbolized in the figure of the ancient goddess of love.
Robert Descharnes, The World of Salvador Dali (New York: 1962), p. 167.
Robert Descharnes, Dalí de Gala, Edita, Lausanne, 1962, pp. 164-165, 223 (ill.).
“Dalí presentará una gran exposición en Tokio,” Voluntad (May 8, 1964), p. 2.
Robert Descharnes and Clovis Prévost, La Vision artistique et religieuse de Gaudí (Lausanne: Edita, 1969), p. [8].
Carlton Lake, In Quest of Dali (New York: Putnam, New York, 1969), pp. 72-74.
G. A. Cevasco, Salvador Dalí: Master of Surrealism and Modern Art (Charlotteville, NY: Story House, 1971), p. 19.
Salvador Dalí and André Parinaud, Comment on devient Dalí (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1973), pp. 79, 223, 358.
Robert Descharnes, Salvador Dalí (Paris: Nouvelles Editions Françaises, 1973), p. [160] (ill.).
Salvador Dali, exh. cat. (Frankfurt am Main: Städtische Galerie und Städelsches Kunstinstitut, 1974), p. 30 (ill.).
Robert Descharnes, Salvador Dalí (Köln: M. DuMont Schauberg, 1974), p. [160] (ill.).
Robert Descharnes, “Los Dalí del Museo Dalí”, Gaceta Ilustrada, año XIX, no. 941 (October 20–26, 1974), p. 59.
Tadao Ogura, Salvador Dalí, and Robert Descharnes, Dali ([Tokyo]: [Shueisha], 1974), pp. [51],108, fig. 38, (ill.)
Le Surréalisme (Paris: XXe siècle, 1975), p. [63].
William S. Rubin, Art dada et surréaliste (Paris: Seghers, [1976]), p. 249.
William Wilson, “Art review: Fun and Games in La Jolla”, Los Angeles Times (May 30, 1977), p. [G1], (ill.).
L’Objet Surréaliste 1931 - 1937 (Paris: Galerie du Dragon, 1979), pp. [10-11], [30] (ill.).
Hommage à Dalí (Paris: Vilo, 1980), p. 140.
Homage to Dalí (Secaucus, NJ: Chartwell Books,[1980], p. 140.
“El escandalo de la ‘Expo-Dali,’” Mujer (Lima), no. 46 (January 1980), p. 42, ill.
El Surrealismo (Madrid: Taurus, 1982), p. 72.
400 obras de Salvador Dalí de 1914 a 1983 ([Madrid]: Obra Cultural de la Caixa de Pensions, 1983), p. 108.
Robert Descharnes, Dalí, l’oeuvre et l’homme (Lausanne: Edita, 1984), pp. 199, 446 (ill.).
Robert Descharnes, Dalí, sein Werk, sein Leben: die Eroberung, des Irrationalen (Köln: Dumont, 1984), pp. 199, 455 (ill.).
Robert Descharnes, Dalí, the Work, the Man: 1934-1944 (S.l.]: Kodansha, 1984), p. 199 (ill.).
Robert Descharnes, Dalí: la obra y el hombre (Barcelona: Tusquets, 1984), pp. 199, 446 (ill.).
Pierre Ajame, La Double vie de Salvador Dali (Paris: Ramsay, 1984), p. 94.
Robert Descharnes, Salvador Dalí (London: Thames and Hudson, 1988, p. 122 (ill.).
Robert Descharnes, Salvador Dalí: The Work, the Man (New York: Henry N. Abrams, 1989), pp. 199, 451, (ill.).
Carlton Lake, In Quest of Dali (New York: Paragon House, 1990), pp. 72-74.
Paul Mariah, Salvador Dalí, Dances with Dalí / Minotaur 25/26, Minotaur Press, Felton, CA, 1991, p. 26
Franco Passioni, “Dalí dans la troisième dimension,” Salvador Dalí: Illustrateur et Sculpteur, exh. cat. (Geneva, 1992), p. 93.
Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí, 1904–1989, vol. I: Das malerische Werk, (Cologne, 1993), p. 279, no. 628 (ill.).
André Bouguenec, Salvador Dalí: philosophe et esotériste incompris (Nantes: Opéra, 1994), pp. 28-29, (ill.).
Marco Di Capua, Dalí, (Paris: Librairie Gründ, 1994), pp. 187, 271, (ill.).
Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí: 1904-1989 ([Köln]: Evergreen (Benedikt Taschen), 1996), pp. 44-45, 95, (ill.).
Haim Finkelstein, Salvador Dalí’s Art and Writing, 1927-1942: The Metamorphoses of Narcissus (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 167, 226.
Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí: 1904-1989 (Köln: Taschen, 1999), pp. 44-45, 95, (ill.).
Robert Descharnes, “Dalì, la Vénus de Milo, et la persistence de la mémoire antique,” D’après l’antique (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2000), pp. 462–65 (ill.).
William Jeffett, “An Obscure Object of Desire: The Venus de Milo, Surrealism and Beyond,” A Disarming Beauty: The Venus de Milo in 20th-Century Art (St. Petersburg, Florida, 2001), pp. 61-67, 83, fig. 29.
Lewis Kachur, Displaying the Marvelous: Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, and Surrealist Exhibition Installations (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2001, p. 130.
Jennifer Mundy, ed., Surrealism: Desire Unbound (Princeton, New Jersey, 2001), p. 97, 329 (ill.).
Llorenç Bonet, Cristina Montes, et al., Antoni Gaudí Salvador Dalí (Barcelona: Loft, 2002), p. 84, (ill.).
El Surrealismo y sus imágenes ([Madrid]: Fundación Cultural Mapfre Vida), 2002, p. 202.
Salvador Dalí, Obra completa: Textos autobiogràfics 2 (Barcelona, [Figueres]: Destino, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, 2003), pp. 356, 545.
Robert Descharnes and Nicolas Descharnes, Dalí: le dur et le mou, sortilège et magie des formes, sculptures et objets ([Azay le Rideau]: Eccart, 2003, pp. 32-33, (ill.).
Ricard Mas Peinado, Univers Dalí (Barcelona, Madrid: Lunwerg, 2003), pp. 230, 315.
Marco Di Capua, Salvador Dalí: su vida, su obra (Barcelona: Carroggio, 2003), pp. 187, 271, (ill.).
Salvador Dalí, Obra completa: Assaigs 1 (Barcelona, [Figueres]: Destino, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, 2005), p. 806
Charles Stuckey, “Dalì in Duchamp-Land,” Art In America (May 2005), pp. 153–54, (ill.).
Salvador Dalí, Obra completa: Entrevistes (Barcelona, [Figueres]: Destino, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, 2006), p. 838.
Stephanie D’Alessandro, “Venus de Milo with Drawers,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 32, no. 1 (2006), pp. 64-65, (ill.), pp. 95-96.
Salvador Dalí: An Illustrated life (London, [Figueres], [Madrid]: Tate Publishing, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales - Ministerio de Cultura, 2007), p. 110.
Guillermo Carnero, Salvador Dalí y otros estudios sobre arte y vanguardia ([València]: Institució Alfons el Magnànim - Diputació de València, 2007), p. 43.
L’Objecte català a la llum del surrealisme (Barcelona: Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, 2007), p. 69.
Pilar Parcerisas, Duchamp en España: las claves ocultas de sus estancias en Cadaqués (Madrid: Siruela, 2009), p. 32.
Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most, and Salvatore Settis, eds., The Classical Tradition (Cambridge, Mass. and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010), fig. 163.
James D. Herbert, “New Wine in Old Bottles: French Art Following World War I,” Chaos & Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918–1936, exh. cat. (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2010), p. 142, (ill.), p. 143.
Dalia Judovitz, Drawing on Art: Duchamp and Company (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), pp. 161–163, (ill.), p. 164.
Michel Squire, The Art of the Body: Antiquity and Its Legacy, University Press, Oxford, New York, 2011, pp. 27-28, (ill.).
John Yau, Marjorie Strider, exh. cat. (New York: Hollis Taggart Galleries, 2011), p. 33, (ill.).
Becky E. Conekin, Lee Miller in Fashion (London: Thames & Hudson, 2013), p. 164.
Stephen Fuller, Eudora Welty and Surrealism (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2013), pp. 53, 249.
Patricia Volk, Shocked: My Mother, Schiaparelli, and Me (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), pp. 77, [82], 280, (ill.).
Stephanie D’Alessandro and Renée DeVoe Mertz, The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2014), 128 (color ill.).
Jane Munro, Silent Partners : Artist and Mannequin from Function to Fetish (Cambridge, New Haven and London: Fitzwilliam Museum, Yale University Press, 2014), pp. 210-211, (ill.).
Johannes Siapkas, Lena Sjögren, Displaying the Ideals of Antiquity: The Petrified Gaze (New York: Routledge, 2014), p. 138.
Possibly Paris, 101 bis rue de la Tombe-Issoire, June 19, 1936.
Possibly Paris, 88 rue de l’Université, Feb. 1939.
Possibly New York, Julien Levy Gallery, Salvador Dali, 1939.
St. Petersburg, Florida, The Salvador Dalí Museum, A Disarming Beauty: The Venus de Milo in 20th-Century Art, Apr. 28-Sep. 9, 2001, fig. 29.
London, Tate Modern, Surrealism: Desire Unbound, Sep. 20, 2001-Jan. 1, 2002; traveled to: New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Feb. 6-May 12, 2002, fig. 72.
Venice, Palazzo Grassi, Dalí, Sep. 12, 2004-Jan. 16, 2005; traveled to: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Feb. 16-May 15, 2005, cat. 156 (ill.).
The artist; sold to Max Clarac-Sérou, Paris, c. 1964; sold to Patrick Derom, Brussels, c. 1990; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2005.
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