Artist: Salvador Dalí
Title: Breathing Pneumatic Armchair (from Dalí's Imaginations & Objects of the Future portfolio)
Year created: 1975
Medium: Original Etching and Lithograph, with Pochoir Hand-Coloring and Collage, on Japon Paper
Edition: XLI/LXXV (41/75) Hand-Signed & Numbered Limited Edition, from the rare Roman Numeral Limited Edition in English on Japon Paper
Height (inches): 39
Width (inches): 27
Signed by the artist
Signed Area: front
Description of piece:
This surrealist masterpiece from Salvador Dalí, Breathing Pneumatic Armchair, is from Dalí’s significant Imaginations and Objects of the Future portfolio. At first glance, the artwork appears to be primarily a study of an armchair, albeit an armchair rendered (understandably, given that the artist is Dalí) in absinthe green. Upon closer examination, one finds unexpected visual details, symbolic references, as well as clever artistic cross-references.
In this highly imaginative artwork, from his series of futuristic inventions, Dalí proposes the invention of a mechanical yet responsive chair, which will both soothe a restive child into slumber and—even more remarkably—synchronize with the breathing of an adult, ultimately linking us to the cosmos.
In the early 1970s gallerist Robert Chase proposed to Salvador Dalí the concept of Dalí picturing himself as the 20th century Leonardo da Vinci, giving to the world what he imagined the future would hold.
Knowing that Dalí greatly admired da Vinci as both a thinker and a creative genius was still not adequate preparation for Dalí’s reaction to the concept. Dalí reportedly rolled his eyes as indication of an extraordinary epiphany, and (the artist speaking in an outrageously exaggerated French-Catalan accent) Dalí loudly exclaimed, "Fantastique! Bravo! Dal-i create the fu-ture!"
And thus Dalí created his imaginatively creative and predictively futuristic “Imaginations and Objects of the Future”— a suite of ten drypoint etchings combined with lithography, added color by the method of pochoir, and collage. Each extravagantly surrealist, the suite included artworks predicting self-driving cars and smart-phones, along with inventions that could only have come from the extraordinary imagination of the artist— all expressed through the fantastical lens of Dalí, as the modern da Vinci.
Composed of original etching, lithograph, color hand-applied by pochoir method, and collage, Breathing Pneumatic Armchair is hand-signed by Dalí, lower right, within the artwork’s image area. Dalí has signed boldly, in pencil. The work bears the edition number XLI/LXXV (41/75), lower left, also in pencil.
In text on the original, oversized Title sleeve, which served as a chemise for the artwork and which will accompany the framed work, are the artist’s own words describing his inventive Breathing Pneumatic Armchair:
“Imagine an anthropomorphic chair that you plug into the wall which breathes at a programmed rate. This means that even from the therapeutic standpoint it is very desirable because we can easily put children to sleep as in a cradle. Instead of rocking them, we put them in a breathing cradle and the movement puts them to sleep.
For the greater calm of the adults, instead of the rocking chair which one must activate by one’s self, you sit down and the chair breathes in unison or, on the contrary, in counterpoint to your breathing. This has the psychopathological effect of calming you and establishing an intra-uterine harmony, not only with the room, but with the whole cosmos, since we ourselves are linked with such movements, harmoniously connected with the cosmos itself.”
Dalí’s magnificent Breathing Pneumatic Armchair predicts technology that would—far beyond the conceits of any ordinary massage chair—literally breathe with the occupant, providing not only a soothing somatic experience, but a transcendent one; connecting us effectively to the harmony of the cosmos.
Visually, the artwork seamlessly unites two thematic concepts, integrating diverse Dalínean iconography within the context of the work. The armchair, heavily tufted and green, is transformed into a royal throne in its adjacent linearly rendered echo, upon which a royal sceptered figure is seated. A crown floats midair above the head of the royal figure; while their long scepter transects both the lower horizon line and Dalí’s own signature. Beneath the green armchair, with its carved lion’s feet, Dalí has cleverly placed, via applied collage, a vibrant, highly detailed rendering of a lion’s head, fangs bared and with piercing eyes.
The pattern of the armchair’s tufting, in the sky overhead, is subtly transformed into minimalist Dalí-esque birds. Sceptered Dalí-esque figures traverse the landscape, which includes both an upper and lower horizon line. In the upper, a scraggy hilled horizon transforms into the setting for the armchair, when viewed from an alternate perspective. In the lower horizon, a linear sailboat sails upon a sea.
The vibrant, colored portions of the composition are offset and balanced with linear renderings accomplished with a draughtman’s precision. Dalí’s judicious use of bold color, juxtaposed with his linear renderings, creates a balance and visual flow to this masterful and fluid artwork. The special Japon paper used for this rare edition adds an added element of depth and delicateness, and instills an almost luminescent quality to the artwork.
Stored flat since 1975, the artwork has now been framed for the first time (hinged with easily removable tape) in an elegant and substantial frame measuring 39” in height x 27” width, with custom archival matting in ivory. On the reverse side of the frame is a special full-sized pocket, created to hold the original Title chemise which accompanies the artwork.
Catalogued in Dalí expert Albert Field's authoritative Official Catalog of The Graphic Works of Salvador Dalí, Reference 75-11 E, page 104, Breathing Pneumatic Armchair was created by Desjobert (lithograph), Rigal (engraving); and published by Merrill Chase, Chicago / Alan Rich, New York.
The penultimate image presented in the auction images shows gallerist Robert Chase seated with Dalí in front of some of the original artworks from which the Imaginations and Objects of the Future portfolio was created, including, notably, the titular Breathing Pneumatic Armchair of this artwork.
Breathing Pneumatic Armchair comes accompanied by its original protective Title chemise, and a Certificate of Authenticity.
Artist bio:
Salvador Dalí, born Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, (1904-1989) was a prominent artist born in Figueres, Spain, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, sixteen miles from the French border, in Catalonia. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media, and he is best known for his surrealist work, including his most well-known painting, The Persistence of Memory. Highly imaginative, Dalí attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to an ancestry of descent from the medieval Moors. His individualistic nature and resistance to conformity made waves, including among his colleagues. In 1934, when Dalí was subjected to a "trial", in which he was formally expelled from the Surrealist group, Dalí retorted, "le Surrealisme c'est moi": "I myself am surrealism".
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