Salvador Dalí: Nudes

Alongside his prolific portfolio of artworks, Salvador Dalí was also known for his unorthodox lifestyle, which heavily influenced his artworks. He had an obsession with the female body, and the majority of his nudes depict women. As a surrealist artist, whose art is characterized by the world of dreams, the bizarre and taboos, Dali used nudes in an unconventional and almost unsettling way. For example, his 1939 World Fair exhibition, The Dream of Venus, consisted of live female models standing with each artwork, hidden inside a grotto. He also produced a series of artworks in 1970 called Nudes Suite that weren't in his usual surrealist style.

On two occasions, Dalí collaborated with famous photographers: The first was with Philippe Halsman in 1951, with whom he created In Voluptars Mors, just one of many projects, which consisted of a photograph of a skull, composed of 7 nude women. The second was with Pompeo Posar for Playboy in 1973, where Dalí surrounded Playboy models with surrealist decorative elements, mixing eroticism with his particular visual universe. Fascinated with Freud, the power of the unconscious and interpreting the human mind, Dali loved to combine these images, which at first seem to have no relation. His way of representing the erotic was colored by fear, pain, anxiety and unconventionallity. Mixing themes of death and fading time, this eroticism was inherently rooted in the fascinations and fears of the artist.

Artsper invites you to discover more nude artworks from the incredible Salvador Dalí.