Detail View: ADJUNCT MODULE D: WORLD ART: Face of the Great Masturbator

Collection: 
ADJUNCT MODULE D: WORLD ART
Preferred Title: 
Face of the Great Masturbator
Alternate Title: 
Visage du Grand Masturbateur
Image View: 
Detail, small figure at lower left
Creator: 
Salvador Dalí (Spanish painter, 1904-1989)
Location: 
repository: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, Madrid, Spain) AS11140
Location Note: 
52 Santa Isabel Street
GPS: 
+40.408889-3.694444
Date: 
1929 (creation)
Cultural Context: 
French; Spanish
Style Period: 
Twentieth century
Work Type 1: 
painting (visual work)
Classification: 
Paintings
Material: 
oil paint on canvas
Technique: 
oil painting (technique)
Measurements: 
110 cm (height) x 150 cm (width)
Subjects: 
abstraction; allegory; self-portrait
Description: 
This painting, the quintessential symbol par excellence of his sexual obsessions, has even been commented upon by the artist himself in the best known of his literary works, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, published in 1942. Salvador Dalí painted the picture in late summer 1929, after spending a few days with Gala, who had decided to stay with him in Cadaqués, despite the fact that her husband at that time, the poet Paul Éluard, had returned to Paris alone. This disturbing composition also shows Dalí’s fantasies reaching a zenith, especially with regard to the motif of the grasshopper suckling the principal metamorphosed figure, since, according to Dawn Ades, Dalí had from early childhood always had a particular terror of the insect. (Source: Museo Reina Sofia [website]; https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/)
Collection: 
Archivision Adjunct Module D: World Art
Identifier: 
7A1-DALI-MRS-VGM-A13
Rights: 
© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.