Artist: Salvador Dali
Title: Enrico Fermi, from Dali's Medicine and Science Suite
Year created: 1970
Medium: Hand-signed Engraving with Color on Arches Paper
Edition: 114/125 Signed & Numbered Limited Edition
Height (inches): 6.875 (image size)
Width (inches): 4.875 (image size)
Paper size: 12.875" x 9.875"
This piece is unframed.
Includes a certificate of authenticity.
Description of piece: This rare original engraving of Enrico Fermi by Salvador Dali is hand signed and numbered 114, from the very small limited edition of only 125 pieces. Stately and dynamic, this hard-to-find and highly collectible work is one of the eight portraits of historic luminaries selected by Dali for his Medicine and Science Suite, each scientist depicted being selected for their world-changing inventiveness and discoveries.
Referenced in the Official Catalog of The Graphic Works of Salvador Dali By Albert Field, Reference 80-1 A, page 144, the work is designated as "Scarce" in The Print Price Guide to the Graphic Works of Salvador Dali, by Bruce Hochman. It is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.
Dignified coloration of sepia, green and blue complements the almost radiant portraiture of Fermi. Dali's fine draftsmanship and skill are evident not only in the magnificent depiction of Fermi, but in Dali's signature details, here specific to his subject: above and behind and beyond Enrico Fermi are crystalline structures; sweeping lines evoking energy and movement; iconic Dali horizon mountainscapes, hinting at a resonance with the imagery in the sky.
This stately and dynamic work, an engraving with color on deckle-edged Arches paper measuring 12.875" in height x 9.875" in width, has an image size of 6.875" x 4.875". Numbered 114/125 in the lower left corner, Dali's large bold original signature, in pencil, extends across more than half of the lower margin beneath the image area.
Virtually self-taught, Enrico Fermi's genius in physics led to his being awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics. He made significant contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics. Though known variably as "architect of the nuclear age", "architect of the nuclear weapon", or "father of the atomic bomb", Fermi did not believe that atomic bombs would deter nations from starting wars, and following the detonation of the first Soviet fission bomb in August 1949, Fermi, along with colleague Isidor Rabi, wrote a strongly worded report opposing the development of a hydrogen bomb on moral and technical grounds.
"History of science and technology has consistently taught us that scientific advances in basic understanding have sooner or later led to technical and industrial applications that have revolutionized our way of life. It seems to me improbable that this effort to get at the structure of matter should be an exception to this rule. What is less certain, and what we all fervently hope, is that man will soon grow sufficiently adult to make good use of the powers that he acquires over nature." —Enrico Fermi
In addition to Enrico Fermi, the other icons of Medicine and Science chosen and depicted by Dali in the Suite are Alexander Fleming, Louis Pasteur, Albert Schweitzer, Hippocrates, Jonas Salk, Marie Curie and Pierre Curie. Dali's Alexander Fleming & Louis Pasteur, also from the Medicine and Science Suite, are currently being offered to benefit the work of IDEA in additional CharityBuzz auctions.
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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