Hello, Dalí!
Double Image by Springbok, featuring artwork by Salvador Dalí (vintage, 1965)
If you’ve dipped your toes into the beautiful and bankruptcy-inducing world of vintage jigsaws, chances are you’ve come across Springbok Edition’s vintage circular (or octagonal) puzzles. Founded in 1963 by Robert and Katie Lewin, Springbok made a name for itself quite early on as being a premiere puzzle brand with an emphasis on beautiful imagery and collaborations with notable artists.
One such early Springbok artist was iconic surrealist painter Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), already well-known at the time for his dreamlike imagery, perhaps most notably in his ubiquitous painting The Persistence of Memory (1931), with its desert landscape and melting watch face.
Though Dalí is best known for his contributions to what we might call “high art,” with paintings in art museums and private collections around the world, you might be surprised to learn that he was no stranger to creating commercial artwork, including advertisements for de Beers jewelers, wax- and paint-makers S.C. Johnson (pictured below), and Hallmark Cards (which, in a full-circle moment, would become the owner of Springbok in 1967). His unusual (and delightful) 1948 holiday cards, which were part of a line of fine art cards that Hallmark released featuring the work of a number of contemporary artists, were perhaps ahead of their time in terms of their imagery, and failed to catch on within the abundance of traditional Christmas card designs. (My favorite is the image of Santa with drawers emerging from his midsection! Click here and scroll to the fourth image in the carousel at the bottom to see for yourself.)
Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940) by Salvador Dali. (Image: The Dalí Archive).
In 1965, Dalí — who at the time spent part of every year in the United States — contributed a puzzle design to Springbok entitled Double Image, which represented a reworking of several earlier images, including Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940) and Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1941). That Voltaire, a philosopher and notable opponent of slavery, was the subject of these several images of Dalí’s — both in painting and in puzzle form — seems, at least to modern eyes, to signify the artist’s alignment with his ideology, especially during a time in the 1960s when Civil Rights were at the forefront of discourse in American society. In addition to his anti-slavery stances, Voltaire was a proponent of freedom of speech and religion, as well as the separation of church and state. (Note: I’m including an image of ‘Disappearing Bust of Voltaire,’ but omitting the earlier work because of its complicated depiction of a semi-nude female enslaved person in the foreground, which is beyond my ability, as a non-art historian, to properly contextualize. I will link to the work here for those who would like to view it).
According to Dalí, and as noted on the Hallmark Art Collection website (an incredible resource), the double-imagery of his design “signified good luck, and the scavaging ants, a recurring motif, symbolized life and vitality.” The specific depiction of Voltaire was based on a sculpture of Voltaire by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), a French sculptor renowned for his statues of Enlightenment figures, including not just Voltaire but Benjamin Franklin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Molière, and U.S. presidents Washington and Jefferson. Dalí’s choice of Houdon’s sculpture of Voltaire as a basis for his double image seems intentional, as the subject — depicted in his later years — appears calm and in command and, dare I say, enlightened.
The image of Voltaire in Dalí’s design is revealed by taking a wider view of the clearer central image of two women in simple dresses, framed by an archway and surrounded on three sides by puzzle pieces, spoons, the aforementioned ants, and what appear to be the scratch marks of forks, depicted in warm reddish and earthen tones. The image even features a miniature self-portrait of the artist (at the lower right-hand side, on what appears to be a spoon). That relative youth and vitality, when examined more closely, reveal the wisdom of age, seems significant here. While puzzling this design, I found particular delight in the puzzle-specific touches that Dalí included in his imagery — both the aforementioned puzzle pieces, and the fact that he shaped his artwork to suit Springbok’s signature circular design. Instead of simply cropping an existing artwork for a fine art puzzle, Double Image suits its medium to a T.
Upon the release of the puzzle, Dalí attended an unveiling alongside his pet ocelot Babou, with whom he was often photographed. According to the Hallmark Art Collection, the event was well-publicized at the time, but I’ve been unable to find a more detailed description of the fête. I can only imagine though, given the excess of the swinging 60s, how thrilling it must have been to be in the room with luminaries of the art world and the best of the best puzzle-makers all together to celebrate this release (if only there were such soirées today to signify new releases, our present-day dissectologists could have our own glamorous variation on Fashion Week).
According to a post on the Salvador Dalí Book Collector blog, this puzzle was released in two editions, distinguished by the bottoms of the boxes and by unique piece cuts. My copy is of the second edition of the puzzle, which, based on a brief survey of eBay, seems to resell for lower prices than the initial release. In 1967, Hallmark acquired Springbok and the archives related to this puzzle merged with Hallmark’s archives of Dalí’s previous holiday cards.
I’m thrilled to have this puzzle in my collection as a lover of both fine art and jigsaw puzzles. When talking to my friends in the puzzle community, one of the aspects of puzzling that we speak about most frequently is how the hobby introduces us to a range of contemporary artists we may never otherwise have found. Certainly, there are many artists, photographers, graphic designers, font designers, and other creatives working today whose artwork has made for stunning and visually engaging puzzles. Rarer, however, are examples of famous artists creating work specifically for the format, and specially crafted for the medium. This puzzle, especially because of its mass-market distribution (as opposed to small-batch puzzles that may only reach a small number of puzzlers) represents a truly inspired enmeshing of the artistic and the commercial, which leads me to dream of how puzzle companies could collaborate with the art luminaries of today — for example, by inviting them to design unique puzzles featuring their fascinations, their signature imagery, and their own vision of the world as they see it. Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, Kara Walker, Yayoi Kusama, David Hockney, Banksy, Cindy Sherman: I could see them all creating fascinating puzzle designs. (And, by the way, Dear Reader, please reach out to me if you know of some example of the above that I’ve somehow missed!)
What a wonder that would be, a true contemporary art puzzle enterprise — but unless and until my vision of a new fine art jigsaw concept comes to fruition — I’ll be content with this vision from the past and its haunting and enduring legacy.
Update (12/26/22)
Since posting this blog, I stumbled across this amazing image of Dalí with Katie and Robert Lewin (founders of Springbok Editions) and Captain Moore (the artist’s personal assistant) from the Facebook page Dalí Authorities, which must have been taken at the official unveiling of the puzzle in New York. The same image also appears on Hallmark Art Collection’s website, but I somehow missed it while researching earlier. What’s so fascinating about this image is that, while it certainly suggests that the image was designed with a circular puzzle in mind, there are aspects of the work that extend beyond the bounds of the puzzle surface. I can’t quite tell what the portion of the image on the right-hand side of the photo is — perhaps a bird perched on a branch? I haven’t been able to find a clearer image of the full canvas anywhere. But if anyone has any guesses as to what the rest of the work includes, I’d love to hear your thoughts and conjectures.
For a further update regarding this puzzle, please check out ‘Double Image,’ Part Deux, my follow-up post, which offers more info on how the puzzle was commissioned, the details of the release party, and even more about the content of the original painting!
Further Reading
‘About Us’ on Springbok Puzzles’ website (a brief history of the company)
Obituary of Robert L. Lewin, co-founder of Springbok
“Jigsaw Puzzle Makers Can Be Merciless,” The New York Times (Dec. 7, 1975), featuring some history related to Springbok and quotes from Springbok co-founder Katie Lewin
“When Salvador Dalí Created Christmas Cards That Were Too Avant Garde for Hallmark (1960)” on Open Culture
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