Author Description

The Dalí Museum presents "Floral Fantasies (???)," an exhibition of three Dalí botanical print suites from the permanent collection, plus a selection of the original nineteenth century botanical illustrations that Dalí transformed. In each suite, Dalí reimagines nature, creating new botanical hybrids to provoke and delight. The 37 prints come from three suites: Flordali (Flora Dalinae) and FlorDali - Les Fruits (both 1968), and Florals (Surrealist Flowers) (1972). Working from historical illustrations by such artists as French botanist Pierre-Antoine Poiteau and Belgian Pierre-Joseph Redouté, Dalí juxtaposes incongruent elements to transform the fruit and flowers into anthropomorphic dream characters, each sprouting surreal appendages and embellished with a host of Dalínian symbols including flies, ants, clocks, eyes, rocks, and beans.