‘Double Image,’ Part Deux
Study for Double Image - Apparition of the Invisible Bust of Voltaire by Salvador Dalí (1965). From MutualArt.
Following my earlier blog post about the Springbok puzzle Double Image, featuring the artwork of Salvador Dalí, I realized there might still be more to uncover about this particular piece and continued my search for whatever else I could find. Thanks to some Springbok fans over on the Vintage Springbok puzzlers Facebook group, I was inspired to join a newspaper archive website in order to do some additional sleuthing and ended up finding a treasure trove of additional information, both about how the puzzle came to be and about the release event in New York City.
In an article by Barbara Holsopple in the September 28, 1965 issue of The Pittsburgh Press, Katie Lewin (co-founder of Springbok) is quoted as saying, “Last January I began dreaming of having an artist paint a picture especially for puzzle reproduction. I heard that Dalí was in New York so I called his hotel, hoping to eventually make connection with the artist. Much to my surprise he answered the phone and we made a date to meet the following day. Our conversation was half English, which he doesn’t speak well, and half French, which I don’t speak well. He was very enthusiastic and began to describe what he would paint for me . . . two women in an archway throwing coins representing wheels of fortune to the world.”
According to another article by Ligaya Fruto in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin dated October 19, 1965, “In addition to Dalí’s fee for creating the artwork, “Dalí made it a condition that [Lewin] help him find a television-set home for his pet ocelot [Babou, pictured above]. Loving animals the way she does — her company, ‘Springbok Editions,’ is named for an African gazelle — she undertook the chore gladly, she said.
“She found a $5 set at an auction, asked the TV people to remove the works, ‘just when they had it going,’ and got a light wired inside. Then she had casters put on the legs, and Dalí and the ocelot are happy.”
In the Pittsburgh Press article quoted above, writer Holsopple quotes Lewin again to great effect, writing “I tried to ask Dalí if he’d like wheels on it, but he didn’t understand what I meant so I sketched the set with wheels. Later I was horrified that I had attempted to draw a picture for an artist like Salvadore [sic] Dalí.”
A separate article by Jean Hall in The Daily Item, a local newspaper in Port Chester, New York (a neighboring town to Rye, where the Lewins lived), dated March 26, 1965, describes the puzzle release party in detail, describing it as “somewhat less astronomical in importance among other of the nation’s launchings Tuesday [alluding to the launch on the same night of Gemini 3, the first two-man space flight], but sufficient to attract hordes of newsmen and cameramen, as well as various invited and uninvited guests.”
From the article, I found out that the party took place at “The Boathouse” in New York City (I’m assuming this is the Boathouse in Central Park rather than the one in Prospect Park, Brooklyn) and that Dalí was quite late to the event. “Delaying his appearance at the vernissage long enough to lower the spirits of those on working deadlines and to raise those of others who used this time to avail themselves of the excellent bar service and fish buffet, the maestro was finally ushered in, in a wheelchair, having recently sprained an ankle.”
Dalí was wearing “pin-striped trousers and a black topcoat, holding a gold-headed cane and an enormous gold metal beetle in his lap” (because of course he was).
Hall, who is rather critical of both the man and the puzzle, writes that the artwork “displays little of the dazzling technique of the virtuoso’s oil paintings, but has a certain frivolous charm,” and that Dalí, “during the approximately ten minutes the ‘surrealist a outrance’ stayed he rolled his tired-looking eyes or crossed them as when he simultaneously kissed the hands of two aspiring young actresses while the TV cameras panned in.” In interviews, Dalí revealed that he had created the beetle in his lap and mentioned that he’d be creating more similar work.
Dalí spent some time signing his name to copies of the puzzle, which were given to attendees, and among the guests were a number of notable actors of the day including Paula Wayne, Nancy Ames, Jean Paul Vignon, and Katherine Dunham.
“Adding to the atmosphere,” writes Hall, “were a Flamenco guitarist from Manhattan and a virtual army of waiters getting their bearings around this newest of New York’s discotheques, stumbling over tripods, Kleig lights, heavy wiring, and pieces of jigsaw puzzles that had ignominiously fallen to the floor in the crush.” (I love this little detail that Hall throws in).
Hall ends her piece with a quippy dismissal of the puzzle: “One out-of-town woman who stood in a corner with her husband, having accidentally wandered in, when asked what she thought of all this answered, ‘Oh, it’s lovely!’ — The painting — or the party? ‘Oh, the party!’ “
In addition to the articles quoted above, I was able to find an image of a study for the painting (pictured above in the header). The study seems to include only the vaguest hints of the double image to come, but does show the development of Dalí’s technique of including utensils in relief, as well as the development of some of the color palette that would encompass the final work. It’s also notable that the study version includes even more puzzle piece forms than would make it into the final work.
Furthermore, and with special thanks to Erin Dodson and Tony Julo, curators at Hallmark Art Collection, I was able to find a photo of the uncropped painting that shows the areas of the image beyond the margins of the puzzle. It turns out that my earlier conjecture that one of the figures in the margin was a bird on a perch. In the bottom right-hand corner, a bearded man appears, from the smoke of his pipe, to conjure a form — which appears to me part animal and part plant — atop which sit two birds, one in its nest.
Double Image by Salvador Dalí (uncropped image), courtesy of Hallmark Art Collection.
I’m indebted to the work of Dodson and Julo for the inclusion of this truly fascinating peek behind the curtain — and for solving the mystery of what was in the margin in the group photo from the release event that you can find on my earlier post. I encourage you to check out the Hallmark Art Collection website, which is a fantastic resource not just as it relates to this puzzle and Dalí’s work for Hallmark more broadly, but also to all sorts of other Hallmark-related art.
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