Philippe Halsman (American/Latavian, 1906 - 1979)
"Dali Clockface", 1953, printed 1981. Silver gelatin print, stamped verso "HALSMAN/DALI Copyright Philippe Halsman '81", edition number 145/250 stamped verso, unframed.
Philippe Halsman and Salvador Dali lived and worked in Paris in the 1930s, when surrealism flourished. But they first met in New York in 1941, when both were new émigrés. In April, 1941, Halsman was assigned by the Black Star Agency to photograph the installation of Dali’s exhibit at the Julien Levy Gallery. Halsman’s relationship with Dali deepened in October, when he photographed the outsize costumes Dali created for the Ballets Russes production of “Labyrinth” at the Metropolitan Opera House — with music by Franz Schubert, choreography by Leonid Massine, and scenery and costumes by Salvador Dali.
Lacking a large studio, Halsman took the company’s prima ballerina, Tamara Toumanova, and another dancer dressed as a giant white rooster, to a nearby rooftop. When Halsman photographed bird and ballerina against the soaring towers of Rockefeller Center, he produced a photograph that evoked one of Dali’s own sharply-focused, surreal works of art. The photo became LIFE’s “Picture of the Week,” the artists became inspired friends, and their creative rapport would last for the next 37 years.
In the decades ahead, Halsman and Dali would “play” together at least once a year — “an elating game,”Halsman wrote in 1972, “creating images that did not exist, except in our imaginations. Whenever I needed a striking protagonist for one of my wild ideas, Dali would graciously oblige. Whenever Dali thought of a photograph so strange that it seemed impossible to produce, I tried to find a solution.”
Condition: Good, minor creases at corners, old adhesive at verso top edge.
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"Dali Clockface", 1953, printed 1981. Silver gelatin print, stamped verso "HALSMAN/DALI Copyright Philippe Halsman '81", edition number 145/250 stamped verso, unframed.
Philippe Halsman and Salvador Dali lived and worked in Paris in the 1930s, when surrealism flourished. But they first met in New York in 1941, when both were new émigrés. In April, 1941, Halsman was assigned by the Black Star Agency to photograph the installation of Dali’s exhibit at the Julien Levy Gallery. Halsman’s relationship with Dali deepened in October, when he photographed the outsize costumes Dali created for the Ballets Russes production of “Labyrinth” at the Metropolitan Opera House — with music by Franz Schubert, choreography by Leonid Massine, and scenery and costumes by Salvador Dali.
Lacking a large studio, Halsman took the company’s prima ballerina, Tamara Toumanova, and another dancer dressed as a giant white rooster, to a nearby rooftop. When Halsman photographed bird and ballerina against the soaring towers of Rockefeller Center, he produced a photograph that evoked one of Dali’s own sharply-focused, surreal works of art. The photo became LIFE’s “Picture of the Week,” the artists became inspired friends, and their creative rapport would last for the next 37 years.
In the decades ahead, Halsman and Dali would “play” together at least once a year — “an elating game,”Halsman wrote in 1972, “creating images that did not exist, except in our imaginations. Whenever I needed a striking protagonist for one of my wild ideas, Dali would graciously oblige. Whenever Dali thought of a photograph so strange that it seemed impossible to produce, I tried to find a solution.”
Condition: Good, minor creases at corners, old adhesive at verso top edge.
% from the market value
Sale price
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