La Truite au bleu (Poached Trout) by Dorothea Tanning
Golconda by Rene Magritte, 1953
Magritte got the name for this painting from his poet friend Louis Scutenaire, who often helped him find names for his paintings. In this case, the name Golconda refers to a city in India, which was the seat for two different kingdoms from the 14th to 17th centuries. The richness of the region, as it was the center of the diamond industry, has become so legendary that the name is now synonymous with “mine of wealth.” As a tribute to his friend Scutenaire, Magritte used his face for the man in the painting closest to the chimney on the right hand side.
The Birthplace of Madness by Michael Vincent Manalo, 2013. Mixed-media, 80 x 57 cm.
Rene Magritte - The Witness
The Dawdler by Mike Worrall
The Bouquet by Mike Worrall
Observatory Time: The Lovers, 1936, by Man Ray
One of Man Ray’s most memorable paintings, Observatory Time, is featured in this black-and-white photograph, along with a nude woman. It includes a depiction of the lips of his departed lover, Lee Miller, floating in the sky above the Paris Observatory. In the photograph, the nude woman is lying on her side on a sofa underneath the painting, with a chessboard at her feet. Observatory Time hints at what the woman might be dreaming: a nightmare or an erotic fantasy. The lips in the picture were an inspiration for the logo of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and many other pop culture iconic images.
The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali
Dali repeated his theme of the melting watches many times, most notably in the 1950’s with The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory. Although it measures a small 10 by 13 inches, it is full of allusions to the first painting, albeit with a flooded landscape, depicting the changes in the landscape from both above and below the water. Whereas some interpretations of the first work claim that it represents Einstein’s theory of relativity, interpretations of this work state that it represents the newly emerging ideas of quantum mechanics and the coming of the digital age.
The Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dali, 1968
Dali illustrates his passion for bullfighting in this painting. His wife Gala, is pictured in the top left corner of the piece, with a look of condemnation, illustrating her hatred for the practice. The statue of Venus de Milo is seen 28 times in the painting, which is not an innocuous addition. In order to see the face of the toreador, you must look past the first illustration of the statue. The face lies in the second Venus de Milo. Upon closer inspection, the breasts of the statue make up the nose of the bullfighter, and their dresses make up his red scarf, and white shirt, tied with a green necktie. When the painting was first exhibited in New York City, it was accompanied by an illustration labeled “how to see the toreador,” which gave explicit instructions on how to see the hidden image of the toreador in the painting.
Rafal Olbinski
