Stock certificate research

Rearranged, the letters in Salvador Dali's name spell "avida dollars," which loosely translates from Spanish to "Eager for Dollars"--a fact the leader of the Surrealists, Andre Breton, used to castigated the young Dali. In later years, the artist's quest for wealth pushed him deep into the commercial realm, which included a foray into the world of mass multiples and even a commercial for Alka-Seltzer. According to Joan Kropf, curator of collections for the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Fla., Dali once bragged to the museum's founder, A. Reynolds Morse, "Look how much money I can make in five minutes of signing these prints." At the end of his life, though, came the ultimate commercialization of his images; thousands of spurious graphics flooded the market, costing unknowing collectors millions of dollars.

It is now 100 years since the painter of the unconscious was born, and it seems an appropriate moment to take stock of the market for his pieces. Did the chicanery of the 1980s cause it mortal damage, or will the centennial of his birth witness a rebirth of confidence?

This year, the Salvador Dali Museum will hold a number of events to celebrate the anniversary. "His name is still quite out there, and he is still talked about," said Kropf. That's more than can be said of many other artists of the period. Ideally, Kropf would like him to be remembered for his early Dadaistic printing innovations. In one instance, for example, he detonated a grenade covered with plaster and nails so that the fragments would imbed themselves in surrounding printing plates. In another, he reverentially rubbed loaves of bread across lithographic stones while creating a print depicting the pieta. He even made use of a paint gun to shoot ink onto printing plates. Despite the fact that he used unorthodox printing methods, his publication procedures were quite responsible. The pieces were published in reasonably low editions, relatively few proofs were released, and Dali himself carefully inspected the finished images prior to their release.

Then, in 1979, things changed. "He started to become less involved with the prints," said Kropf. She believes that many of the improprieties which ensued were the responsibility of Dali's advisors or "secretaries," as he called them. According to Kropf, they were not salaried, and so they were dependent upon commissions from business deals made on behalf of the artist.

"Dali would end up on the short end of the stick," she said, "and the secretaries had worked themselves in for royalties." Everyone involved was eager for dollars, and various questionable deals were approved. In one famous instance, Dali was found to have signed blank sheets of paper. Ultimately, court cases were spawned. In one brought by the Center Art Gallery, the defendants were convicted on 208 counts.

As for the damage done to Dali's reputation, Kropf believes that Dali's commercial activities made art critics look at him with a wary eye. Yet, she feels that he should still be revered for his earlier work. "He got a bad rap because there were so many problems with his later prints," she said. It is her hope that the museum's events will encourage a reassessment of his legacy, rather than make him out to be a charlatan.

Dali on Display

In light of the controversies later in Dali's life, it is unsurprising that many of the works being marketed this centennial year were originally executed in the early part of his career.

For example, the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York celebrated recently with a show documenting the collaboration in the 1940s and '50s between Dali and the photographer Philippe Halsman. Perhaps the most famous image on display is one titled "Dali Atomicus," in which Dali, his studio furniture, three cats, and an arching stream of water are shown suspended in mid-air. According to Karen Marks of the Greenberg Gallery, both artists were fascinated with levitation, and they went to great lengths to generate the desired effect in this photo. In fact, it required 26 takes, including 26 tosses of the three cats. "Thank goodness PETA was not around at the time," she said.

One of the other major images included in the show is "Voluptate Mors," a photograph depicting Dali before a human skull formed by seven nude women. One of the original models for this photograph was a featured guests at the Greenberg show, and in a gesture that Dali himself would have undoubtedly appreciated, she stood in front of the photograph wearing a button that said, "I'm the left cheek."

The photographs on offer at the exhibition were expensive, ranging in price from $15,000 to $45,000 each. This is because only two or three of each exists. Halsman just wanted the opportunity to work with Dali to create each image. He only printed a few copies for his own use and then locked them away; the 32 examples on offer were all drawn from Halsman's own cache.

In the print realm, at least one of Dali's early publishers is still extant and has images available. In 1965, Dali appointed the Phyllis Lucas Gallery to be his exclusive North American publisher, and, together, they published 26 images, ha those days, according to the firm's current director, Michael Lucas, Dali was closely involved. "He didn't sign his name unless he was completely satisfied," he said.

Many of the pieces were released in modest editions of 150, in line with the quantities approved by many other masters of the day, such as Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall. The images were either created afresh by Dali on each plate or stone, or they were taken from gouaches, which he drew expressly for the purpose of having them turned into prints. Lucas offers potential purchasers the assurance that the plates were all cancelled or destroyed, thus no other examples can be printed. The price range for the gallery's remaining inventory extends from a low of $2,500 to a high of $30,000 per image. For the skittish collector looking to add a Dali graphic to his or her collection, there may be no more secure source.

As for later editions, some of those, too, are resurfacing this year. Edward Weston Fine Art of Chatsworth, Calif., is now releasing two such Dali images, in quantities of 100 each, to honor what would have been Dali's 100th birthday. The first is a work from the 1970s titled "Tristan and Isolde 'Cup of Love," which is unusual in that the image is printed on a material called Rowlux, which was used to create an almost 3-D effect.

Although the examples themselves are not hand-signed, Weston said each is accompanied by a certificate signed by Dali. As for the price of each example, Weston said that they are running $15,000 to $20,000. The other work he is releasing this year is Dali's "Discovery of America," which he admitted is a questionable piece since the signature is only "attributed" to Dali, and not certainly authentic. These are priced at $2,500 to $3,000.

For the very latest editions available, one can turn to Collectors Editions of Canoga Park, Calif.; in fact, some of its Dali graphics are not even printed yet. According to Steve Wetzel, the firm's director of creative services, Collectors is planning to release 25 prints over the next five years, all of which are derived from a set of drawings Dali did for Disney in 1946. In that year, Dali actually became a Disney employee, (going so far as to punch the time dock upon arrival and departure), and worked with animator John Hench on a film titled "Destino." Unfortunately, the film was never completed, and Dali's sketches were put in storage.

Almost 60 years later, Roy Disney decided to have "Destino" completed, and he approached Collectors Editions about publishing copies of the images. They decided to use only the techniques available to Dali in his day--stone lithography, etching, silkscreening--and release each piece in an edition of 495, which, according to Wetzel, was deemed fairly low. The pieces will range in price from $895 to $1,495 each.

Fakes and Forgeries

What advice is there for someone thinking of buying any of the above, or any of the other Dali multiples on the market?

Caution is always advisable, said Frank Hunter, the director of the Dali Archives in New York, a private repository of information about the artist, which provides authentication services and published The Official Catalogue of the Graphic Works of Salvador Dali in 1996.

For the potential purchaser, he offers a laundry list of red flags. "Most certificates put out by dealers are very questionable," he said. Many fakes are marked EA or AP and even some numbered editions have turned out to be fakes.