It seems possible that one could have viewed the High Museum of Art's recent "Dali: The Late Work" exhibition as well as visited the sprawling Dali museums in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Figueres, Spain, and still have only seen a fraction of the Spanish surrealist's apparently unending output.
That notion gains momentum with Thursday night's opening of an exhibit at Emory University’s new Marcus Hillel Center of a little-known suite of 25 color lithographs portraying the epic history of the Jewish Diaspora and the return to its homeland. While "Dali: The Late Work" curator Elliott King was fleetingly familiar with the series, “Aliyah: The Rebirth of Israel,” it wasn't until he was asked to speak at the opening and a brown-bag lunch on Friday that he came to fully appreciate it.
Enlightening the Colorado-based expert was Emory professor of Judaic studies David Blumenthal, who on his first date in 1965 with his future wife Ursula took in an exhibit of Dali’s original “Aliyah" paintings at the Huntington Hartford Museum in New York. In 1968, 250 sets of 25 lithographs each were produced, and then the stones were destroyed, ensuring that the suites would become precious. Ursula Blumenthal purchased set No. 150, which the couple stored in its original box under its piano for nearly three decades.
In honor of last September's opening of the Marcus Hillel Center, Ursula had the idea to frame and exhibit the prints for the first time. David, serving as curator, has written the equivalent of a dissertation on his website (www.js.emory.edu/blumenthal) and narrates an audio tour that is available for free download via iTunes U on iPod Touch or iPhone. As far as the Blumenthals know, theirs is the only set in Atlanta.
"The exhibit brings a welcome seriousness to the study of Dali's graphics, which are often overlooked as being commercial," King said. "We tried to broadly encourage the reassessment of Dali's graphics at the High exhibit by including two suites -- ‘Don Quixote' and ‘10 Recipes for Immortality' -- and it's great to see exhibits like this that shine still further light on Dali's prolific career."
Aliyah is a Hebrew word meaning "ascent," according to Blumenthal, later expanded to mean "to ascend to the land of Israel.”
“After centuries of oppression in the exile, ‘aliyah’ is a commitment to the rebirth of the Jewish people, to the renaissance of the Jewish spirit, in its own space,” he said.
While the lithograph series finds Dali working in a more serious mode than some of the pieces in the High show, King said, "There are oddities -- Op Art references and allusions to his painting ‘Tuna Fishing,' for instance -- that crop up without evident explanation."
Still, King believes that "Aliyah" was a commissioned series, and that Dali approached it intelligently and with intensity.
"It's somewhat similar to his 1967 illustrations of ‘Poems of Mao Zedong,' " King said. "Dali wasn't a Maoist, nor was he Jewish, and yet both suites contain learned references and even transcriptions of Chinese and Hebrew characters, respectively.
"It's peculiar but extremely interesting, and it just shows how much there is about Dali that remains to be discovered."
Exhibit preview
"Aliyah: The Rebirth of Israel"
Opening 6:30-9 p.m. March 17, featuring a talk by Dali scholar Elliott King and a wine and cheese reception. Free. Registration required at www.emoryhillel.org/dali. Through June at Marcus Hillel Center at Emory University. 9:30 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Fridays. Free. 735 Gatewood Road, Atlanta. 404-963-2548, www.emoryhillel.org/dali.
Brown-bag lunch discussion: King speaks on "Dali's Graphic Suites: Serious Work or Commercial Ventures?" Noon-1:30 p.m. Friday. Free. Registration required: www.emoryhillel.org/dali.
Audio tour: Visitors can check out iPods to hear David Blumenthal's narration at the Hillel Center reception desk.
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