Colour etching (signed/numbered)

Tracing a number

The FLOAT record for this item describes a color etching on Arches paper, signed by Dalí and numbered A64/195. The plate is not named, but the number is a clue. Every Dalí sheet we found carrying the number A64/195 comes from the same 1974 portfolio, After 50 Years of Surrealism, whose English-language edition was printed on Arches and numbered A1/195 through A195/195.

Between February and September 2011, an auction house in Calgary, Canada, sold eleven sheets from that portfolio, each numbered A 64/195, as separate lots. They are eleven of the twelve plates from one numbered copy of the portfolio, broken up and dispersed. One of those sheets, Flung Out Like a Fag-End by the Big-Wigs, came back to the same saleroom and sold again in December 2023, framed this time.

Because the record does not say which of the twelve images it means, this page tells the story of the portfolio and of copy A64 as a whole.

Fifty years of Surrealism, by its most notorious member

After 50 Years of Surrealism was published in 1974. It was a full portfolio: an introduction by Dalí, a complete text in English, and 12 etchings, each with its own cover sheet describing the image, all enclosed in a black case with an inner folder.

The plates are drypoint and etching, with color laid in by stencil and, in many impressions, by hand. Their titles read like chapters of Dalí's autobiography. Eleven of them, as they appear on the Calgary sheets, are Freud with Snail Head, Picasso: A Ticket for Glory, The Divine Love of Gala, Gala's Castle, Gala's Godly Back, God, Time, Space and the Pope, A Shattering Entrance Upon the American Stage, The Great Inquisitor Expels the Saviour, The Curse Over Thrown, The Museum of Genius and Fancy and Flung Out Like a Fag-End by the Big-Wigs. The French title of that last plate is a pun: 'Expulsé comme un mégot par les magots.'

The subjects map onto real episodes. In March 1938 Dalí met Sigmund Freud through the writer Stefan Zweig and sketched his portrait; Freud remarked on the young Spaniard's 'candid fanatical eyes.' Gala, born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova, met Dalí in August 1929 and became his wife, muse and business manager. And in the Surrealist magazine Minotaure, André Breton announced Dalí's expulsion from the group, later mocking him with the anagram 'Avida Dollars.'

How the edition was built

The publisher, Transworld Art of New York, issued the portfolio in several states. According to a dealer that has handled complete sets, the total edition was 460: 195 English copies on Arches numbered A1/195 to A195/195; 35 English copies on Arches with an extra suite on Japon paper; 195 French copies on Rives numbered F1/195 to F195/195; and 35 French copies with an extra Japon suite. There were also artist's proofs on Arches and on Lana paper.

A French-edition sheet described by a Paris dealer was printed by the Ateliers Rigal, which handled the intaglio, the stencil coloring and the typography. It carries a 'Transworld Art' blind stamp at lower left and two copyright notices on the back, one for Dalí and one for the publisher. Dalí signed each sheet in pencil at lower right; the edition number sits at lower left.

So the letter in front of the number tells you the language and paper. An 'A' sheet like this one belongs to the English edition on Arches, and an 'F' sheet to the French edition on Rives. In the standard catalog of Dalí's prints by Michler and Löpsinger, the eleven Calgary sheets are numbers 666 to 676, in volume I.

Dalí in 1974

Dalí turned 70 in May 1974. That year his Theatre-Museum opened in Figueres, the Catalan town where he was born, after 14 years of work; it had been his largest single project and the main focus of his energy since 1960. In Paris he recorded the opera-poem Être Dieu (To Be God), playing the lead role himself.

He was also at the height of a print boom that would damage his reputation. Dalí is alleged to have signed blank sheets of lithograph paper, possibly more than 50,000 of them from 1965 until his death, and to have been pressured to sign blank canvases later used in forgeries. As a result, dealers are wary of late graphic works attributed to him, and one print-market site warns that tens of thousands of forgeries followed the signing spree of the 1960s.

That is why the details matter. A genuine After 50 Years of Surrealism sheet should match the publisher's numbering scheme, the right paper for its letter prefix and the publisher's blind stamp.

What copy A64 and its siblings have brought

Copy A64's sheets sold cheaply when they were dispersed in Calgary in 2011, mostly against estimates of C$300 to C$400. The results ranged from C$140 for God, Time, Space and the Pope to C$644 for The Curse Over Thrown, all in Canadian dollars. Flung Out Like a Fag-End by the Big-Wigs brought C$468 in February 2011; when the same numbered sheet returned in December 2023, framed with archival mat and special glass, it sold for C$1,989 against an estimate of C$800 to C$1,000.

Other impressions from the Arches edition give a sense of the market in U.S. dollars. In July 2019 The Curse Conquered, numbered A135/195 and framed, sold at auction in New Orleans for $896.00 including premium, against an estimate of $800 to $1,000. It is a different copy, so its price is not this sheet's price.

The FLOAT record cites a $960 result for a Dalí color etching, but we could not find that figure on the page it points to, so it is not listed here.

The numbers

Medium

Drypoint and etching with pochoir (stencil) color, some hand coloring

Paper

Arches (the 'A' edition); French 'F' edition on Rives

Dimensions

Sheet about 26 x 19 3/4 in; image about 15 3/4 x 11 3/4 in (40 x 30 cm)

Edition size

195 English copies on Arches; 460 copies in all, plus artist's proofs

Catalogue raisonné

Michler and Löpsinger, vol. I, nos. 666-676 (eleven of the twelve plates)

Markings

Signed in pencil lower right, numbered lower left, 'Transworld Art' blind stamp

Timeline

1. May 11, 1904

   Salvador Dalí is born in Figueres, Catalonia.

2. 1929

   Dalí joins the Surrealist group and, in August, meets Gala.

3. Jan 30, 1934

   Dalí and Gala marry in a civil ceremony in Paris.

4. Mar 1938

   Dalí meets Sigmund Freud through Stefan Zweig and sketches his portrait.

5. 1960

   Dalí begins work on his Theatre-Museum in Figueres.

6. 1974

   Transworld Art publishes After 50 Years of Surrealism: 12 etchings in a total edition of 460, including 195 English copies on Arches. The Theatre-Museum opens in Figueres.

7. Jan 23, 1989

   Dalí dies in Figueres at 84.

8. Feb 12, 2011

   Three sheets numbered A 64/195, including Flung Out Like a Fag-End by the Big-Wigs, sell at auction in Calgary.

9. Sep 17, 2011

   Eight more sheets numbered A 64/195 sell at auction in Calgary.

10. Jul 13, 2019

    Another Arches copy, The Curse Conquered (A135/195), sells for $896.00 in New Orleans.

11. Dec 2, 2023

    Flung Out Like a Fag-End by the Big-Wigs, A 64/195, resells in Calgary for C$1,989.

The world in 1974

• Mar 4, 1974

  Harold Wilson returns as British prime minister after Edward Heath resigns.

• Apr 8, 1974

  Hank Aaron hits his 715th home run, passing Babe Ruth.

• Apr 25, 1974

  Portugal's Carnation Revolution ends 41 years of dictatorship.

• May 7, 1974

  West German chancellor Willy Brandt resigns after a spy scandal.

• Aug 9, 1974

  Richard Nixon's resignation takes effect; Gerald Ford becomes president.

• Nov 24, 1974

  The fossil skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis known as Lucy is discovered and named.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Colour etching (signed/numbered) is number 95 of 100 in the art entries of the FLOAT 100. 88 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (94 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Breton's nickname for Dalí, 'Avida Dollars,' is an anagram of 'Salvador Dalí.'
• After meeting Dalí, Freud wrote to Stefan Zweig that until then he had regarded the Surrealists as 'complete fools.'
• Dalí is alleged to have signed possibly more than 50,000 blank sheets of lithograph paper from 1965 until his death.
• The same sheet, Flung Out Like a Fag-End by the Big-Wigs numbered A 64/195, sold in Calgary twice, 12 years apart, and its price rose more than fourfold in Canadian dollars.
• Dalí is buried in a crypt beneath the stage of his own Theatre-Museum in Figueres.