Salvador Dalí's Influence on Australian Art and NGV Acquisition Effort
Caroline Buckley, NGV Senior Fundraising Officer, discusses Salvador Dalí's impact on Australian artists from the 1920s onward, highlighting early exposure through exhibitions like the 1939 Exhibition of French and British Contemporary Art, which featured Dalí's controversial painting Memory of the child-woman. Australian artists such as James Gleeson, Eric Thake, and Russell Drysdale were influenced by Dalí's surrealist techniques, with works later displayed in NGV exhibitions like Lurid Beauty in 2015. The NGV aims to acquire Dalí's 1946 painting Trilogy of the desert: Mirage, currently on loan, to address the absence of his paintings in Australian public collections, following the success of the 2009 retrospective Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire, which attracted over 330,000 visitors.
Key facts
- Salvador Dalí's influence reached Australian artists as early as the 1920s, with increased awareness in the 1930s as Surrealism gained global attention.
- The first Dalí painting in Australia was Memory of the child-woman in 1939, shown in the Exhibition of French and British Contemporary Art, curated by Basil Burdett and brought by Keith Murdoch.
- Australian artists like James Gleeson and Eric Thake created works inspired by Dalí, such as We inhabit the corrosive littoral of habit and Salvation from the evils of earthly existence, awarded in 1940.
- The NGV's 2009 exhibition Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire was the first full retrospective of his work in Australia, drawing more than 330,000 visitors.
- The NGV seeks to acquire Trilogy of the desert: Mirage, 1946, through a fundraising appeal, as no Dalí paintings are held in Australian public collections.
Entities
Artists
- Salvador Dalí
- James Gleeson
- Eric Thake
- Russell Drysdale
- Peter Purves Smith
- Joy Hester
- Albert Tucker
- Louise Hearman
- Leigh Bowery
- Tim Schultz
Institutions
- NGV
- The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia
- National Gallery of Australia
- Art Gallery of New South Wales
- University Art Gallery, The University of Sydney
- Salvador Dalí Museum
- Holmes á Court Collection
Locations
- Australia
- Melbourne
- Sydney
- Canberra
- Perth
- London
- New York
- Paris
- St Petersburg, Florida
Sources
- NGV Blog —