In a stark desert landscape, an older man sits in the foreground, illuminated, with a newspaper. Arranged evenly across the land behind him, smaller than perspective would indicate, are a faded child holding a hula hoop, a man holding a melting piano, a standing woman, and a figure near the horizon.

A Chemist Lifting with Extreme Precaution the Cuticle of a Grand Piano

1936

Salvador Dalí Spanish, 1904–1989

Spain

When this painting was first shown in Chicago in 1937, Salvador Dalí told a reporter that he intended to induce a feeling of malaise in the viewer. He expanded, “It is impossible to ask for an explanation. I try to get the nearest to a certain thing as seen in a dream.” The figures shown here often have multiple readings or identities: his hometown pharmacist or “chemist”; the German composer Richard Wagner; and a composite man blending aspects of Swiss folk hero William Tell, former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, and Dalí’s own father. Close examination of this work, aided by infrared imaging, reveals the presence of yet another figure – a ghostly portrait of Wagner’s patron, 19th-century King Ludwig II of Bavaria – nearly visible beneath the work’s surface.

Oil on canvas

Modern Art