Resembling two scarlet-red lips, Salvador Dalí’s iconic Surrealist design Mae West Lips Sofa, manufactured in 1937–38, is now on display at NGV International. Acquired by the NGV in 2023 as part of its Annual Appeal, which invites philanthropic contributions from the community, the work is one of only two in the world featuring an eye-catching red-and-black colourway and the last of Dalí’s five sofas to enter a public collection.
Salvador Dalí first travelled to the United States in 1934, and from that point onwards he was fascinated by American culture and Hollywood. Mae West was at the time one of the highest paid female actors in the United States and the infamous innuendos and double entendres of her film and stage work appealed greatly to Dalí’s surrealist sensibility.
The design for the sofa is based on Dalí’s gouache and photographic composition, Mae West’s Face which May be Used as a Surrealist Apartment (Art Institute of Chicago), in which the actress’ facial features and hair are incorporated into the interior design of an apartment. Her platinum blonde hair was hung over a curtain rod to provide drapes framing the room, her eyes were formed by two framed pictures, her nose became a fireplace, and her lips formed a two-tone sofa.
Dalí turned his idea into physical form after he visited Surrealist patron Edward James in London. Three sofas – in pink and red with gold fringe – were produced for James’s London home. A separate pair, red with elaborate black woven fringing emulating the epaulettes worn by matadors, were produced by the interior designers Green & Abbott for the dining room at James’s country estate, Monkton House, in West Sussex.
Both of these red and black sofas remained in place at Monkton House until 2016. One of the pair is now held in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Its companion entered the NGV Collection through the generous support of the philanthropic community as part of the 2023 NGV Annual Appeal.
Celebrating 100 years since the founding of the Surrealist movement, Dalí’s Mae West Lips Sofa will be displayed alongside a newly acquired copy of the 1924 Surrealist Manifesto by the movement’s founder André Breton. In the manifesto, Breton famously defined Surrealism as the expression of “the actual functioning of thought” in its purest form.
Salvador Dalí’s Mae West Lips Sofa and André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto are on display from 1 July 2024 at NGV International, St Kilda Road. Entry is FREE. For further information, please visit the NGV website: NGV.MELBOURNE
