Art Filter: Please Help Identify This Drawing (Possibly Dali)

July 29, 2006 11:36 AM

Someone has gone out of their way to try and sell a friend of mine the linked drawing, claiming that it was a preliminary drawing (left) before the final print was produced (right), done by Salvatore Dali. If anyone could please provide any other information regarding this image, or its validity, help would be much appreciated! The claim is that the left is an original, and the right is a print. Also, as far as I know this image has no name, so I am unable to find out anything about it, but then again - I know nothing about art. Thanks for your help! See the image below (400 kb): http://geaugasleep.com/image.jpg I <3 you AskMeFi! -Rob
posted by boscord to media & arts (10 comments total)

If you cross your eyes at the picture, you can see that they're exactly the same; I don't know if it's authentic or not, but the drawing is definitely not a "preliminary drawing". It may be a drawing that the print is based on, but there isn't enough of a difference between the images to make one "preliminary" over the other.

Also, is the drawing on the left "squished down" into the paper? It looks like it to me, which I would take to mean that the picture on the left is *also* a print, just a dirtier one than the one on the right.
posted by interrobang at 11:44 AM on July 29, 2006

Gone out of their way to sell it to your friend? Why? I mean, there's a well-established market for this kind of stuff, right?

I'm no art critic, but it looks like a scam to me.
posted by box at 11:50 AM on July 29, 2006

You could try asking the people at the Salvador Dali museum.
posted by BishopsLoveScifi at 11:51 AM on July 29, 2006

There's a significant market in the selling of fake drawings, prints and even paintings that have been attributed to artists. Picasso and Dali are two of the 20th. century articts whose work is often counterfeited. You need to establish the "provenance" (i.e. the "chain of custody and ownership") for the drawing. You would benefit from having an established and trusted fine-art dealer take a look at the work before purchasing.
posted by ericb at 11:52 AM on July 29, 2006

I don't even have to look at the picture to tell you that it's probably fake.

In the late 80s my father was a lawyer in somewhat famous legal case (well, famous in the art world) that detailed how Dali was complicit in his own forgeries. Basically what he would do is sign pieces of blank canvas and then sell those to others who would then either do their best to copy his work or to create originals in his style. Dali was as crafty a businessman as he was talented an artist (I know, I know, there are many Dali haters out there, but just run with me on this).

Anyway, long story short, I would never buy anything that is supposedly done by Dali because really, no one can tell what is real and what is fake. Okay, that's a bit of an overstatement, but it's definitely extremely hard and debatable.

Also, I should say that I'm referring almost solely to prints of his, not original paintings.

From Lee Catterall's book about my father's case:

Don't be fooled by Dali's signature on a print. He signed thousands of blank sheets of paper that later were used to reproduce Dali images, usually paintings. More often, his signature was forged on such reproductions. He signed his name in so many ways that experts are at a loss in verifying an authentic Dali signature. Before buying any Dali print, also consider Dali's Abuses, which constituted overt participation more than mere facilitation, in the manufacture of hundreds of thousands "limited edition" prints bearing his name and his surrealistic images. While many of the paintings are authentic works of Dali, they have been reproduced in numerous "limited editions" and sold as "original" lithographs, etchings, etc. The painting most commonly reproduced for such fraudulent purposes was Lincoln in Dalivision, "prints" of which Los Angeles art appraiser Dena Hall testified in the Hawaii trial have become as commonplace as "pancakes at the pancake house." Other favorite Dali paintings used as models by the print fakers were Corpus Hypercubicus, Metamorphosis of Narcissus and Hallucinogenic Toreador. Dali assuredly did not participate in fraudulent prints bearing his name and images that were not his, which are referred to as "fake fakes" and are far less numerous than fakes based on Dali's actual paintings.
posted by Cochise at 11:53 AM on July 29, 2006 [2 favorites has favorites]

For the past twenty years the Salvador Dali Gallery (San Juan Capistrano, CA) has been the only gallery dealing exclusively in authentic works of Dali. I suggest contacting them. They do appraisals to authenticate his works for $150.
posted by ericb at 11:56 AM on July 29, 2006

Having read Conshise's post -- if in your friend's position, I'd pass (and, fast)!
posted by ericb at 11:58 AM on July 29, 2006

*Conchise's* ;-)
posted by ericb at 11:59 AM on July 29, 2006

Even if I didn't know about the signed blank sheets of paper, I'd be concerned because the seller is pursuing your brother. As box said, above, if the drawing is legit, there would be plenty of available buyers.
posted by wryly at 12:23 PM on July 29, 2006

Of course, it is only a matter of time before the dali-authorized "forgaries" are valuable in their own right.
posted by b1tr0t at 2:29 PM on July 29, 2006