Isidore Ducasse, better known by the pseudonym Count of Lautréamont

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April 2026 represents a truly magical moment for the world of art. We are celebrating two extraordinary birthdays: the 100th anniversary of the Surrealist movement becoming a powerful force in society (1926), and the 200th anniversary of the birth of Gustave Moreau (1826).

Moreau was the great master of symbols and myths; the Surrealists loved him like a “spiritual father” because he was the first to show how to paint the mysterious world of our dreams and the deep subconscious.

It was precisely in this fertile atmosphere of 1926 that the genius of a young Salvador Dalí began to germinate conceptually within the Parisian orbit.

In 1926, Dalí made his first transformative trip to Paris and his meeting with Picasso, events that catalysed his eventual immersion into the black hole of influence exerted by the Comte de Lautréamont’s “Bible” of Surrealism: Les Chants de Maldoror.

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Dalí did not merely illustrate the text; he used his “Paranoiac-Critical method” to excavate the marrow of Lautréamont’s violent prose.

He focused on the most famous metaphor of the movement: “Beautiful as the fortuitous encounter on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella”.

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In Dalí’s hands, these objects are not mere props; they are surrealist hybrids. Through 42 etchings, the Master of Surrealism transformed the “man-umbrella” and the “woman-machine” into delirious personifications of repressed desire and anatomical terror.

The Rosetta Stone of these illustrations is the work titled Quelque Chose a eu Lieu (1934). Here, Dalí reinterprets Millet’s Angelus, replacing the pious peasants with the umbrella and the sewing machine.

Dalí himself explained this obsession: “If, as we claim, the ploughed earth is the most literal and the most advantageous of all known dissection tables, the umbrella and the sewing machine had been transformed in The Angelus into a male figure and a female figure”.

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The umbrella, according to Dalí, attempts to hide its state of erection behind a “shameful hat”, while the sewing machine proclaims the “mortal and cannibalistic virtue of its needle”, identifying with the praying mantis that devours the male after the “paroxysmic” act.

This was not mere fantasy. Dalí’s intuition, his belief that Millet’s original painting hid a coffin of a dead child beneath the layers of paint, was later confirmed by X-ray analysis at the Louvre: “A dark mass appeared on the plate in the precise place I had indicated to them”, declared Dalí.

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The original edition of Les Chants de Maldoror illustrated by Dalí remains one of the most precious artist books in existence. It captures a “dance macabre” where the everyday object becomes monstrous.

In these illustrations, Dalí established an iconography of decomposed figures that continues to haunt our cultural imagination a century later.

As we reflect on these hundred years of Surrealist power, it is impossible not to look toward Australia, where the spirit of Dalí finds a unique architectural home.

The d’Arenberg Cube in McLaren Vale, which houses a magnificent Dalí Universe Collection, celebrates its own landmark in 2026: 10 years of collaboration between the Dalí Universe and Art Evolution.

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In a stunning tribute to the very iconography discussed in this article, the roof of the d’Arenberg Cube features a striking installation. You will find a sea of umbrellas; all of them are black, except for one solitary red umbrella.

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This lone red splash amidst the darkness perfectly mirrors the “fortuitous encounter” of Lautréamont’s prose and Dalí’s vision: a singular, vibrant spark of genius rising out of the black hole of the subconscious.

From the dissecting tables of 19th-century Paris to the rooftop of a futuristic glass cube in Australia, the link remains unbroken. Salvador Dalí, Les Chants de Maldoror, and these overlapping anniversaries remind us that the aesthetics of the monstrous is not a thing of the past, but a living, breathing, and eternally provocative reality.

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“Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision”.

Salvador Dalí

As we live through 2026, we find ourselves at a shimmering milestone. It has been precisely ten years since the seeds of a most “paranoiac-critical” collaboration were sown between the Dalí Universe and our partner Art Evolution.

This partnership, which germinated in the lush soils of British Columbia back in July 2016 at the Sandhill winery, has matured like a fine wine, finding its current most surreal home within the architectural marvel of the d’Arenberg Cube in South Australia.

At d’Arenberg, the traditional boundaries between the palate and the subconscious dissolve. Here, like at the Sandhill initial exhibition, one does not merely “taste wine”, one consumes the spirit of Surrealism.

For Dalí, taste was a fundamental sense, wines and food always had a key primary role in his artistic production. “The most philosophic organs man possesses are his jaws… it is at the supreme moment of reaching the marrow of anything that you discover the very taste of truth”, declared Salvador Dalí

Visitors approaching the d’Arenberg Cube are greeted not by mere signposts, but by the weight of time itself. Standing in majestic defiance of gravity is the monumental sculpture Nobility of Time. This iconic soft watch, draped over a sturdy tree, reminds every guest that “Time reigns supreme over man”, even as they prepare to step into a realm where time stands still.

The D’Arenberg Cube is a futuristic and Surreal building, its shape recalling that of a Rubik’s Cube, the glass surfaces adding another layer of dynamism where the attention can’t focus. It was conceived to represent the complexities of wine making.

Inside the Cube’s “Alternate Realities”, the Dalí Universe art collection flourishes. The exhibition features over 25 authentic Salvador Dalí bronze sculptures and graphic artworks, showcasing a wide array of the master’s icons and imagery. As Christopher Talbot, President of Art Evolution, so aptly observes, “Dalí is the titan of Modern Art, and it is an honor to house these three-dimensional bronzes of his genius within a structure that challenges the very logic of space”.

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These works, curated under the visionary guidance of Mr. Beniamino Levi, President of the Dalí Universe, have traveled across the globe, showcased in the most prestigious locations on the occasion of world-class art exhibitions.

Inside the D’Arenberg Cube, Dalí’s legacy enters into a vibrant dialogue with the work of Australia’s own surrealist master, Charles Billich.

Billich, whose works grace the halls of the Vatican and the White House, complements the Dalinian spirit with his own brand of visionary mastery. Inspired by our collection and exhibitions he even made some surreal masterpieces focused on Dali’ works. This juxtaposition creates a bridge between the European roots of Surrealism and its contemporary Australian evolution, proving that the language of the subconscious is truly universal.

This ten-year journey with Art Evolution has been more than a business collaboration; it has been a cultural crusade. Starting with the Sandhill exhibition in Canada and before landing at the D’Arenberg, the Dalí Universe Collection has been presented in their galleries in Alberta and at the Sydney harbor.

From the discovery of rare editions of the Persistence of Memory in Switzerland to the installation of the Triumphant Elephant in the heart of Adelaide’s Rundle Mall, with Art Evolution we have successfully brought “the Divine Dalí” to over 250,000 art lovers in Canada and Australia.

Throughout the remainder of 2026, we shall be presenting a curated selection of photographs and retrospective posts across our social media platforms to honor these ten years of shared history. We invite you to join us in this digital celebration of the surreal.

Dalí Universe looks forward to many more years of this remarkably profuse and inspiring collaboration with Art Evolution. Together, we shall continue to ensure that the soft clocks never stop ticking and that the crutches of reality always support the dreams of the imagination.

“I am the first to be surprised by the images that I see appear and that I register with my brush. I am only the medium”.

Salvador Dalí

At d’Arenberg Cube, beauty shall not only be edible, but also drinkable, or it shall not be at all!

Salvador Dalí, Manifeste Mystique, 1951.

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In the heart of Sassuolo, Dalí Universe presents a journey into the extraordinary: the exhibition “Salvador Dalí: Avida Dollars – Science and Faith”.

Currently hosted at the Fine Art Gallery in Sassuolo, this curated experience invites visitors to immerse themselves in the complex, multifaceted mind of the Master of Surrealism through a selection of masterpieces defining his later, most profound years.

This exclusive event transforms the architectural and cultural landscape of the city, exploring the electric friction between Dalí’s material success and his spiritual evolution.

The works, drawn from the prestigious collection of the Dalí Universe, have been meticulously chosen to illustrate the three pillars of Dalí’s maturity: his obsession with the “Avida Dollars” persona, his reverence for scientific discovery, and his mystical return to faith.

At the heart of the exhibition stands the monumental bronze sculpture, “Saint George and the Dragon”. Chosen for its deep resonance with the local identity, as Saint George is the revered Patron Saint of Sassuolo, this masterpiece serves as the definitive bridge between Dalí’s universal surrealist language and the historical heart of the city.

As Dalí himself proclaimed: “I am surrealism… I have repudiated nothing; on the contrary, I have reaffirmed, sublimated, hierarchised, rationalised, dematerialised, spiritualised everything”.

While the struggle of Saint George has been immortalised by masters like Raphael and Paolo Uccello, Dalí transfigures this traditional martyrdom into a “symbolic psychoanalysis of the human condition”. His Saint George is a “gallant horseman in shining armor”, captured at a precise, frozen moment of triumph over the primordial forces of evil.

The exhibition title pays homage to the famous anagram “Avida Dollars” (greedy for dollars), mockingly coined by André Breton in 1942. However, this transition from rebel to icon was not merely a financial strategy; it was a response to a profound existential crisis.

Following his formal expulsion from the Surrealist circle in 1939, a move Breton intended as a campaign of defamation, Dalí staged a masterful “program of negation”. While Breton remained in self-imposed isolation in America, refusing to learn English to protect the “purity” of his prose, Dalí embraced the New World’s machinery of fame. He effectively wrote Breton out of the Surrealist record, famously declaring, “I am Surrealism.”

To Dalí, the “Avida Dollars” moniker was the ultimate postmodern irony: he dismantled the paternal authority of Breton to replace it with a personal mythology that was at once classical and commercially invincible.

Moving through the gallery, the visitor encounters Dalí’s profound fascination with the scientific mysteries of the twentieth century. This intellectual hunger is brilliantly manifested in the exhibition through the bronze “Surrealist Newton” and the visionary graphic series “The Conquest of the Cosmos”.

Dalí was captivated by the unseen forces that govern our existence, from the splitting of the atom to the crystalline perfection of the genetic code. He viewed the double helix not merely as a biological structure, but as a divine architecture, famously stating: “The DNA is the only thing that links us to God. It is the real Jacob’s ladder, made of the same spiral of the DNA molecules. This is the spiral of the soul”.

The journey concludes with Dalí’s mystical return to faith. Featuring the lithographs of the “Madonna of Port Lligat” and the “Madonna of Raphael”, the exhibition shows how Dalí reconciled nuclear physics with Catholic mysticism.

It is fascinating to note that Dalí’s embrace of Catholicism and Renaissance values was initially framed as a calculated “Anti-Surrealist” stance. By the early 1940s, he had strategically aligned his imagination with a “return to order”, rejecting the chaotic automatism of his peers in favor of the “Divine Proportion”.

The journey is completed by Dalí’s illustrations for Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, tracing a path from the “demoniacal experiment” of his youth to the spiritual harvest of his later years.

Dalí spent his existence searching for Heaven, concluding it was found “exactly in the center of the bosom of the man who has faith”. Through this 2026 exhibition in Sassuolo, the Dalí Universe invites the public to witness this vital energy, where courage is channeled directly from the flames of the subconscious into the light of art.

By the mid-1940s, the Master of Surrealism had transcended the boundaries of traditional artistry to become a living icon, a brand so potent that his signature alone could validate the most mundane objects.

This was the era of “Avida Dollars”, the scathing anagram André Breton coined in 1942 to mock Dalí’s perceived greed. Yet, in typical Dalinian fashion, the artist didn’t shrink from the title; he wore it like a crown of solid gold.

By the time Salvador Dalí reached his mid-forties, his public persona was no longer a mask, it was an organ. His flamboyant regalia, the enormous waxed moustaches, and the silver-topped cane were part of a ritualised showmanship.

As a contemporary observer noted in 1970, “forty years after his soft watches drooping over a barren landscape made him famous, Dalí is still Everyman’s idea of the mad genius of modern art, and mad genius sells like nothing else”.

Dalí understood a truth few artists dared to admit: image is the ultimate currency. He reached a stage where his artistic signature was so recognizable that his name became unnecessary.

By 1970, Dalí was earning half a million dollars annually after taxes, commanding $50,000 for a single portrait. He sold to the titans of industry, Heinz, Hartford, and Ricard. When Paul Ricard arrived by yacht to Cadaqués for a simple watercolor, he left having paid $280,000 for the mammoth 11′ by 14′ canvas, Tuna Fishing.

The scale of Dalí’s commercial success was nothing short of monstrous. He was a one-man Renaissance factory, echoing the industriousness of Michelangelo or Titian.

“At any given moment there may be hundreds of people working on Dalí artifacts”, reported Life magazine. His creative spirit was distilled into a dizzying array of products: shirts, ties, cognac bottles, stamps for Guyana, and even gilded oyster knives.

In the Aubusson factory, dozens of women wove gold threads into his tapestries. In Nancy, glassblowers crafted his visions into tableware. At the Paris mint, craftsmen struck medals designed by him, medals the French bought as “insurance against hard times”. It was a staggering evolution from the early days when Gala would trudge through the streets of Paris, desperately trying to find a buyer for a single work.

To Dalí, money was the result of an alchemical process, the transformation of base matter into spiritual substance. He drew a profound, almost mystical link between biological energy and financial accumulation.

The headquarters of this financial empire moved seasonally between the St. Regis in New York and the Hotel Meurice in Paris. The lobbies were perpetually crowded with “anonymous-looking businessmen with attaché cases”, waiting for a piece of the Dalí magic.

Out of hundreds of proposals, only a few dozen would reach fruition, such as the famous 1970 commercial where Dalí rolled his eyes and declared, “I am mad. I am completely mad… over Lanvin chocolates”. He was paid $10,000 for fifteen seconds of “madness”.

His negotiations were legendary for their theatricality. Dalí would “crétinise” those around him to maintain control. When a questioner at the Meurice asked why he provoked people, he replied that idiocy was the thing to cultivate. When asked why he told monstrous lies, he countered: “I am here to confuse and cloud the issue, you to put matters straight”.

At the center of this whirlwind was Gala, the “axis upon which the Dalinian world rotated”. She was the gatekeeper, the negotiator, and the pragmatic enforcer.

While Dalí played the “mad genius”, Gala was the one who asked the hard questions. To the filmmakers wanting to capture Dalí’s entrance with a baby panther, her response was a cold lesson in economics: “Do you know what a good steak costs?”

Gala was often perceived as “mean” or “boorish” by the entourage of starlets, hippies, and models that surrounded them, but her role was essential. She was the one who turned back presents she deemed insufficient and ensured that even the most prestigious dealers remained “on their toes”. Yet, beneath the professional ruthlessness, the bond was absolute. They remained “mon petit” and “ma petite” to each other until the end.

The success of Avida Dollars was fueled by a symbiotic relationship with the media. Reporters needed his outrages for headlines, and Dalí needed the headlines to feed the “circular progression” of his fame.

Beniamino Levi, Foreword from “Dalí in the Third Dimension”, published by the publishing house Umberto Allemandi & C. in 2010.

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The international art community stands in silent tribute as we mourn the passing of a titan. Dalí Universe joins the world in honoring Umberto Allemandi, who departed this world on his 88th birthday, a poignant closing of a circle for a man whose life was defined by the perfection of cycles, history, and art.

Umberto Allemandi was not merely a publisher; he was a pioneer who revolutionised the way we consume and comprehend art history.

As the legendary founder of Il Giornale dell’Arte and co-founder of the global network including The Art Newspaper, he transformed art reporting into a rigorous, international discipline. His vision ensured that art was never a silent, static aesthetic experience, but a vibrant, living dialogue; a philosophy that resonates at the very core of the Dalí Universe’s mission.

For our President, Beniamino Levi, this loss is deeply personal. Their relationship was a confluence of two minds dedicated to the “Persistence” of genius.

Throughout the decades, Allemandi’s publications meticulously documented the vast landscape of modern and contemporary art, providing the essential intellectual framework for scholars and collectors worldwide.

This shared passion for Salvador Dalí found its most enduring expression in their collaboration on the book, “Dalí in the Third Dimension”. This work remains a cornerstone of Dalinian scholarship, dedicated to the sculptural masterpieces of the Catalan genius and the extraordinary vision required to bring Dalí’s two-dimensional dreams into the physical realm of space and form.

As Mr. Levi reflects: “Umberto had the rare gift of translating the surreal into the tangible. He didn’t just document the Third Dimension; he helped the world inhabit it”.

A poignant testament to this lifelong synergy was recently shared on our social media platforms: a photograph capturing Allemandi and Levi together in the ethereal setting of Matera.

The occasion was the grand inauguration of the exhibition “Salvador Dalí – La Persistenza degli Opposti” (The Persistence of Opposites), which opened in December 2018.

In the shadow of the ancient Sassi, the image captures two architects of culture contemplating the “Persistence” they both spent their lives defending.

Allemandi once remarked: “Art is a continuous dialogue between the past and the future. Our job is to ensure the message is never lost in translation”.

Umberto Allemandi’s innovative approach did more than just report on art; it enriched the very cultural discourse surrounding the Great Masters. His legacy will continue to breathe through every page he published, inspiring a new generation of scholars, collectors, and dreamers to look closer, think deeper, and dream larger.

As Dalí Universe joins the international community in offering our deepest condolences to the Allemandi family, we choose to remember Umberto not through the silence of loss, but through the resonance of his work.

The collaboration between these two visionaries, Levi e Allemandi, is perhaps best encapsulated in the words Beniamino Levi wrote for the Allemandi edition of The Hard and the Soft: “My goal has always been to bring Dalí’s three-dimensional creative process to light, transforming the surrealist dream into a tangible reality that the public can finally touch and understand.”

Today, as we look at the photos of Beniamino and Umberto together, we realize that they succeeded. Through their shared journey, the surrealist dream became tangible.

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This exclusive event, taking place on the 14th and 15th of March 2026, offers a rare opportunity for collectors and art enthusiasts to engage with the physical representation of the Catalan Master’s most iconic dreams.

The Exhibition: Masterpieces from the Dalí Universe

The highlight of the 2026 program is an exhibition of bronze sculptures presented by Massimo Martina, representative of the Dalí Universe. Founded by Beniamino Levi, the renowned Italian art dealer and researcher who worked closely with Dalí since the 1960s, the Dalí Universe manages one of the world’s most significant private collections of Dalí’s work, with a specialized focus on his sculptural oeuvre.

The collection’s history is rooted in a profound personal connection. It was Levi who, after visiting Dalí’s studio and seeing early sculptural models, encouraged the artist to further explore the three dimensional medium. Levi recognized that sculpture allowed Dalí’s iconic surrealist imagery to truly “come to life” in the physical world. For decades, these works have toured over 100 prestigious museums and vennues from London and Paris to Shanghai and Venice reaching more than 12 million visitors globally.

Featured Icons of Surrealism

The display at Art.CY features several legendary bronze sculptures that highlight Dalí’s obsession with time, fantasy, and the subconscious:

• Horse Saddled with Time: A centerpiece of the exhibition, this sculpture depicts a horse burdened by a “soft watch,” symbolizing the relentless passage of time and the fluidity of human experience.
• Alice in Wonderland: One of Dalí’s most beloved themes, reimagining Lewis Carroll’s character through the lens of eternal youth and the importance of dreams and fantasy in Dali’s art.
• Profile of Time: Directly inspired by the 1931 masterpiece The Persistence of Memory, this work features a melting watch draped over a branch, transforming into a human profile.

Every piece in the exhibition is edited by the Dali Universe, presenting the Master’s true vision in sculptural form.

The Masterclass: Dalí, Surrealism, and Sculpture

Complementing the exhibition, attendees are invited to a specialized masterclass led by Massimo Martina. Having spent over 14 years working in the Dali Universe alongside Beniamino Levi, Mr. Martina brings unparalleled insight into the technical and philosophical nuances of Dalí’s sculptural work.

The session, focused on Dali, surrealism and sculpture, will explore how the artist transitioned his famous “paranoiac-critical” method into bronze. Mr. Martina will decode the meanings behind the most important Dalinian icons, offering a deeper understanding of the master’s creative process.

About Massimo Martina

Massimo Martina is an esteemed collector and dealer specializing in Surrealist art. Having worked for many years for Dali Universe, through his platform, dalisculptures.com, he manages a collection of authentic limited edition bronze sculptures edited by the Dalí Universe, aiming to make these masterpieces accessible to galleries and private collectors worldwide.

For more information regarding the event and the artworks:

• Art.CY Exhibition: artcy.eu
• Massimo Martina: massimomartina.art
• The Dalí Universe: daliuniverse.com

To understand Dalí, one must first decode the enigma of Gala, the woman he claimed to love “more than mother, more than father, more than Picasso, and even more than money”.

In the high-octane atmosphere of Surrealism, Gala was the stabilizing force. Dalí himself famously articulated her essential role: “The paranoiac-critical method functions only on condition that it possesses a soft motor of divine origin, a living nucleus, a Gala”.

She was the “Gradiva” of his life, the one who moves forward, stepping out of the pages of Wilhelm Jensen’s novel to cure the young artist of his incipient madness and hysterical laughter.

Born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova in Kazan in 1894, her Russian roots instilled in her a secretive, intuitive nature. After a youth spent in the intellectual circles of Moscow and St. Petersburg, a bout of tuberculosis led her to the Clavadel sanatorium in Switzerland in 1912.

It was there, amidst the alpine air, that she met the poet Paul Éluard. Their union was forged in a shared passion for literature, leading her to Paris in 1916. By 1917 they were married, and in 1918, their daughter Cécile was born. Yet, Gala was never destined for the domesticity of the bourgeoisie; she was the “Sacred Beast” of the Surrealist circle, even engaging in a legendary ménage-à-trois with the artist Max Ernst.

The seismic shift occurred in 1929. When Gala arrived in Cadaqués with Éluard and René Magritte, she found a young Dalí balanced on the precipice of genius and insanity. Despite a ten-year age gap, the recognition was instantaneous.

As Dalí recounted in The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, he recognized her by the “maternal and courageous” anatomy of her back. She became his “Victory”, the woman who would exorcise his demons and channel his chaotic energy into meticulous canvases.

Their bond was so absolute that it necessitated a ruthless shedding of the past; Gala eventually distanced herself from her daughter to become the permanent fixture at Dalí’s side. They wed in a civil ceremony in 1934, a union initially loathed by Dalí’s father, who viewed the Russian divorcee as a predatory influence. To Dalí, however, she was the “Galarina”, the subject of his 1945 masterpiece, which he labored over for a year to capture her spiritual and physical essence.

By 1937, Gala had transitioned from inspiration to institution. She was the “soft motor” that handled the hard realities of the art world. As Dalí’s business manager, she negotiated contracts with a ferocity that earned her both respect and notoriety.

In Diary of a Genius, Dalí notes that she was the one who kept him tethered to the easel: “She is the only one who knows how to transform my ‘excrement’ into gold”.

Their spiritual journey culminated in 1958 with a Catholic wedding in Girona, solidifying their “mystical” union.

As the decades passed, Gala’s role evolved. In 1968, Salvador Dalí gifted her the Castle of Púbol, a medieval retreat where he could only visit her upon receiving her written permission. This courtly arrangement reflected the sovereign status she held in his life; she was his queen, his judge, and his sanctuary.

Gala was more than a model; she was a co-author of the Dalí brand. She was the “Angel of the Anchor”, the woman who prevented the artist’s ship from drifting into the void.

When she passed away in 1982, the “soft motor” of the Dalinian Universe finally stopped. For the world, she remains an enigma, a woman of steel and intuition who realized that to be the muse of a genius, one must first be a genius of management.

“The paranoiac critical method functions only on condition that it possesses a soft motor of divine origin, a living nucleus, a Gala”.

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí

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The bronze sculpture “Saint George and the Dragon” has been ceremoniously selected by the Dalí Universe as the centerpiece of the upcoming exhibition “Salvador Dalí. Avida Dollars – Science and Faith”.

This exclusive event is destined to transform the architectural and cultural landscape of Sassuolo, Modena, offering a curated journey into the complex dualities of the Catalan genius.

The exhibition explores the electric friction between Dalí’s obsession with material success, satirically mocked by André Breton through the anagram Avida Dollars, and the artist’s profound, late-career devotion to nuclear physics and Catholic mysticism.

Chosen for its deep resonance with the local identity, as Saint George is the revered patron saint of Sassuolo, this bronze masterpiece serves as the definitive bridge between Dalí’s universal surrealist language and the historical heart of the city.

Throughout the annals of art history, the struggle of Saint George has been immortalised by masters such as Giotto, Raphael, and Paolo Uccello. Yet, in the hands of Salvador Dalí, this traditional martyrdom is transfigured into a symbolic psychoanalysis of the human condition.

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Dalí’s Saint George is far more than a simple knight; he is a “gallant horseman in shining armor”, captured at the precise, frozen moment of triumph over the primordial forces of evil.

The artist’s fascination with the Renaissance was not just an academic interest; it was a spiritual obsession. “If I look toward the past”, Dalí wrote in The Secret Life, “beings like Raphael appear to me as true gods”.

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This specific bronze work maintains a direct aesthetic bridge to Raphael’s 1505 masterpiece in the Louvre. While both works share a dynamic diagonal composition, Dalí transfigures the subject through his signature “Nuclear Mysticism”.

Where Raphael uses a lance to pin the beast, Dalí emphasises mathematical precision, creating a compositional balance where the thin lance forms an ideal diagonal rising from the dragon’s head, through the knight’s arm, and extending toward the faceless Princess of Selene.

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In the quintessential Dalinian vision, the sculpture is a theater of transformation. The dragon’s wings do not simply flutter; they erupt into flickering flames. Most strikingly, the dragon’s bifurcated tongue morphs into a crutch, one of Dalí’s most potent and recurring symbols.

For the Catalan artist, the crutch represented “the symbol of death and the symbol of resurrection”, an object of “supreme authority” discovered in a country attic during his youth. By converting the beast’s weapon into a support of authority, Dalí illustrates the necessity of the “symbolic death” of our inner obsessions to reacquire a new, balanced life.

The tactile nature of the bronze reveals Dalí’s manic attention to detail. The dragon’s skin is rendered with the scales of a fish, a profound nod to his Diary of a Genius, where he recalled a hallucinatory episode believing he was turning into a shimmering fish.

Furthermore, the shiny finish of the knight’s armor and the dragon’s tongue reflects the Dalinian philosophy that “Glory is a shiny, pointed, cutting thing”.

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This sculpture carries an immense weight of spiritual history. Since 1995, a museum-sized bronze of this work has resided within the Vatican Museums as a gift from the Dalí Universe to Pope John Paul II. Its presence in Sassuolo brings a fragment of that Apostolic Roman glory to the province of Modena.

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Dalí spent his existence searching for Heaven, which he concluded was found “exactly in the center of the bosom of the man who has faith”. In his sculpture “Saint George and the Dragon”, the warhorse does not recoil in terror; instead, it draws vital energy from the very flames of the dragon, channeling that courage directly to the knight.

“At the very moment when Breton did not want to hear any more about religion, I was preparing, of course, to invent a new religion which would be at once sadistic, masochistic, and paranoiac”.

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí

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With these words from his autobiography, “The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí”, the Master of Surrealism confesses a truth that would define his entire existence.

For Salvador Dalí, life was not a series of random events, but a continuous, meticulously orchestrated Carnival.

As we enter the heart of the Carnival season, we look back at the man who turned the act of “dressing up” into a sacred ritual of self-revelation.

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While the world uses masks to hide, Dalí used them to expose the “Paranoiac-Critical” depths of the human spirit.

From his earliest years in Figueres, Dalí understood that the garment was a tool of power. In his autobiography, he recalls the supreme pleasure of transformation. This was not mere play; it was the birth of a monarch.

Whether draped in a makeshift ermine or adorned with paper crowns, the young Dalí was already practicing the art of the “spiritual disguise”.

He theorized that the human being is essentially a “soft structure”, vulnerable and biological, that requires an “armor” to face the world.

Undoubtedly, one of the most extravagant manifestations of this passion for disguise occurred when the Catalan Master prepared for his first encounter with Gala, the woman who would become his “Gradiva” and his ultimate victory.

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Dalí did not merely “get dressed” to encounter Gala; he underwent a profound biological metamorphosis. He approached his own reflection with the same obsessive precision he applied to a canvas, orchestrating a ritual of appearance that blurred the line between the divine and the barbaric.

In a gesture of radical elegance, he took a pristine silk shirt and intentionally shredded it, wearing the fabric open to the elements to expose his chest, a calculated act of vulnerability and strength.

Over this, he draped a heavy, theatrical mantle, a “mantle of greatness” that commanded the air around him. Even under the sweltering heat of the Mediterranean summer, he wore this cape with the solemn gravity of a Renaissance prince or a mystical prophet.

To complete this living sculpture, Dalí adorned himself with long, clinking necklaces that sang with every movement, creating a rhythmic, metallic music. Most surreal of all was his olfactory “aura”; he smeared his body with a pungent mixture of goat glue and lavender, a sensory contradiction designed to be simultaneously attractive and repulsive.

For Dalí, these were not costumes; they were biological necessities. He wrote: “Every morning when I wake up, I again experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dalí”. The clothes were the skin of that pleasure.

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The relationship between Dalí and the aesthetic of Carnival is a journey through the grotesque and the fantastic. From his collaboration with Philippe Halsman in the iconic “Dalí Atomicus” (1948), capturing the chaotic, suspended energy of a festive masquerade, to the legendary 1941 ball, “A Night in a Surrealist Forest”.

At that ball, Dalí transformed a party into a three-dimensional nightmare-dream. Gala appeared in a bed, wearing a stuffed lion’s head, while guests moved among shattered mannequins and tables supported by human legs.

Here, Salvador Dalí conveyed his deeply personal philosophy: one should not dress as a clown, but as a “dream of an apple falling on a piano”.

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Even when stripped of his capes and necklaces, Dalí wore a permanent mask: his mustache. He viewed it as a performative accessory, famously stating: “I am a permanent disguise. I wear my mustache as antennas to capture reality, and my clothes as if they were the skin of a divine reptile”.

He even carried a jewel-studded case filled with spare mustaches to offer to friends, proving that the masquerade is a gift to be shared.

To Dalí, the only difference between himself and a madman was that he was not mad; he chose to live the Carnival every single day.

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Salvador Dalí

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The London Art Fair has officially returned to the capital for its 38th edition, transforming the Business Design Centre into a sanctuary for Modern and Contemporary art.

Following the exclusive preview on January 20, the Fair is now in full swing, running from January 21 to 25, 2026.

This year, the Fair’s theme, “Surrealism Returns”, perfectly aligns with a unique curatorial collaboration with the National Trust, showcasing surrealist works from iconic modernist homes.

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Amidst this prestigious atmosphere, Dalí Universe is proud to announce its most significant presence at an international fair to date. Our collection is being showcased through two esteemed partners: MOLLBRINKS GALLERY (Sweden) and GORMLEYS GALLERY (Ireland).

Never before has the Dalí Universe presented such a numerous and diverse selection of sculptures at a single international event. As the London Art Fair kicks off the global collecting season, we are thrilled to offer collectors a rare opportunity to invest in the three-dimensional genius of Salvador Dalí.

At the Mollbrinks Gallery stand, visitors can admire a selection of limited edition bronzes that explore the fluidity of time and form. Among them: “Dance of Time I & III”,two variations of the iconic melting clock, Dalí’s most profound meditation on the relativity of time; and “Dalinian Dancer”, a masterpiece of movement, which has been featured on the London Art Fair’s own pages as a highlight of this year’s Surrealist focus.

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Meanwhile, Gormleys Gallery presents a curation of four additional masterworks. Among them: “Homage to Newton”,Dalí’s surrealist tribute to gravity and the English scientific tradition; and “Surrealist Piano”,where music and anatomy collide in a lyrical Dalinian dream.

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With a total of eight sculptures on display, London Art Fair 2026 highlights the polyhedric nature of Dalí.

As Mr. Beniamino Levi, President of Dalí Universe, emphasises: “Dalí’s work is immediately identifiable because his distorted and exaggerated expressions transcend the canvas. In these bronzes, the fantastic becomes tangible.”

At this year’s Fair, the presence of Dalí’s bronze reaffirms his position as the cornerstone of the Surrealist movement.  

“It is wonderful to see the carefully curated stands of two leading international galleries (Mollbrinks and Gormleys) showcasing the sculptures of Salvador Dalí alongside Contemporary Surrealist artworks. Surrealism has triumphed at LAF 2026!” James Sanders, Dalí Universe.