Salvador Dali's Datsun
Joc14
30/01/2019
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Although he did not drive -his wife Gala or his chauffeur Artur Caminada drove for him- Salvador Dalí felt a great fascination for cars. They appear in many of his works such as Bather (1924), Imperial Monument to the Woman-Child (1929), Paranoiac-Critical Solitude (1935), Debris of an Automobile Giving Birth to a Blind Horse Biting a Telephone (1938) or Cars dressed (1941).
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Dalí did not drive but felt a great fascination for cars
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In the 1970s, the Japanese carmaker Datsun Motor Company commissioned four contemporary artists to publicize their models in the US market, one of the chosen painters was Salvador Dalí who created a drawing with ink, watercolor, and collage that was reproduced in the press of the time. Currently, this painting can be seen at the Salvador Dalí Museum of St. Petersburg, Florida, on loan by its owner Nissan North America Inc.
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As part of the payment, Dalí received a Datsun 180B Wagon, an extremely rare car in those years in Spain, and which is currently exhibited in the courtyard of Púbol Castle, as we can see in the photographic report by Martí Dacosta published in El Retrovisor. This vehicle was used by the service to go to make orders and remained for many years closed in a barn until the Fundació Gala i Salvador Dalí bought it and restored it.Also, an advertisement for television was filmed inspired by the Persistence of Memory picture in which a Datsun appears inside the painting with a Dalí as a passenger, while a voice-over explains the properties of the vehicle combined with the painter's comments.Below you can see the ad.
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