Property of a Descendant of Rosabelle C. Edelman

Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904-1989)
Untitled
Inscribed ‘Hommage a Miss Edelman’ (across opening pages)
Pen on paper
8.75 x 11.25 in.
This work is drawn on the frontispiece of the book DALI: A Study of His Art-in-Jewels, New York, 1959, The Collection of the Owen Cheatham Foundation.

Dali’s obsession with the human eye is most famously noted in his film, Un Chien Andalou, in which the opening scene features a woman getting her eye sliced open by a razor. While they are also used in his set design for Hitchcock’s 1945 film, Spellbound, often found floating throughout his paintings and even made into a jeweled brooch (The Eye of Time, 1949), eyes resonated with Dali as a symbol of reality. By displacing the eye, Dali calls to attention a loss of reality or, perhaps more importantly, the manifestation of a new reality, one beyond the bounds of human vision.
Perhaps the most Dali-esque of all of his symbols is the clock. Whether it is melting or intact, the clock speaks to the relativity of time and the exploration of materializing time within space. Dali is quoted as coming to this realization while looking at a piece of melting Camembert cheese. His renowned work, The Persistence of Memory, 1931, features four clocks; three melting and one solid. The fluidity of the clocks emphasizes Dali’s study of softness versus hardness among objects and the tangibility of that which is intangible, time itself.

Provenance: Gift of artist to Rosabelle C. Edelman;
Thence by descent to present owner.

Rosabelle C. Edelman was born in 1910 to Russian immigrant parents of Jewish descent who immigrated to the United States in 1900.[1] As an employee of the United States Treasury Department at the Alien Tax Center in New York City it was Miss Edelman’s job to ensure that resident aliens had paid their taxes before exiting the country, as no resident alien could leave the country without paying taxes owed to the United States government. As was stated in a 1954 New York Times article, “The government wants to be sure it has its money before he gets away.”

Many of the people who visited the center were notable actors and actresses, musicians, and artists who in gratitude for Ms. Edelman’s assistance gave her gifts in the form of autographed pictures. Salvador Dali was one of her more famous clients and gave her seven of his published books in which he created drawings personally inscribed to Ms. Edelman. They are dated from 1954 to 1963. They were inherited upon her death by the present owner. Upon her retirement from the Treasury Department in 1964, Miss Edelman received the Albert Gallatin Award, the highest honorary career service award issued by the United State Treasury Department, recognizing her long and honorable service at the Treasury Department.[2]

Citations: 1. Bureau of the Census, “1910 United States Federal Census,” 2. The Internal Revenue Service, Part 6. Human Resources Management, Chapter 451. Employee Performance and Utilization, Section 1. Policies, Authorities, Categories, and Approvals. 6.451.1.18 Albert Gallatin Award.