L'Immaculée Conception, 1930. The Immaculate Conception. by Salvador Dali, 1904-1989

Salvador Dali, 1904-1989
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L'Immaculée Conception, 1930. The Immaculate Conception.

Original etching over heliogravure in black ink. 1930. From the edition 9 impressions on special japon nacré paper (total edition of 111 impressions plus 5 proofs). No impressions were issued signed in pencil. Printed at the studio of Ducros and Colas. Published by André Breton and Paul Eluard for Editions Surréalistes. Extremely rare.
Ref: Michler-Lopsinger 'Dali Catalogue of Etchings' no 2

Beautiful richly inked impression. On pale cream special japon nacré paper. Excellent condition; slightest traces of old mounting on the reverse. Full small margins as issued.
Sheet: 9 1/4 x 7 1/8ins. Plate: 8 1/4 x 6 3/8ins (209x164mm).

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L?Immaculée Conception is one of the rarest prints in Dali?s oeuvre, dating from the very first key period of his Parisian Surrealist art and the of his first interest in etching in 1930. Impressions are extremely uncommon; virtually no examples were signed.

Dali first visited Paris in 1928 meeting Picasso and Miro. Since about 1922 he had been greatly influenced by the Pittura Metafisica of De Chirico (see nos. in this catalogue) a and although he toyed with abstract imagery around the mid 1920?s in fact he was already set in his course towards an imagery which expressed ideas of fantasy and the subconscious mind. When he first exhibited his paintings in Paris in 1929 it was apparent that, independently he arrived at a form of Surrealist thinking. Seeing the work André Breton appointed him to his Surrealist Group and wrote an introduction to the exhibition. The etching L?Immaculée Conception was drawn in 1930 the year following that key first exhibition, and it was issued by Breton.

One of the techniques that is most marked in Dali?s early Surrealist drawings is that of creating his figures with a pattern of whirling parallel strokes almost like bandaging. The effect is to create a type of constant surface movement over the form so that they seem to hover indefinitely in space. Dali has used just that technique in this etching.

As in virtually all his early etching in this plate Dali used a combination of hand-etched work over a basic plate prepared by heliogravure.