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Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's
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Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair Hardcover - 2002

by Schaffner, Ingrid


From the publisher

Life Magazine wrote that one funhouse at the 1939 World's Fair stood out among the others:

"Dal's Dream of Venus, the creation of famed Surrealist painter Salvador Dal, is the most recent addition to the still-growing list of amusement-area girl shows and easily the most amazing. Weird building contains a dry tank and a wet tank. In the wet tank girls swim under water, milk a bandaged-up cow, tap typewriter keys which float like seaweed. Keyboard of piano is painted on the recumbent female figure made of rubber. In dry tank...a sleeping Venus reclines in 36-foot bed, covered with white and red satin, flowers, and leaves. Scattered about the bed are lobsters frying on beds of hot coals and bottles of champagne....All this is most amusing and interesting."

The building's modern, expressionistic exterior, with an entrance framed by a woman's legs, and shocking interior, including the bare-breasted "living liquid ladies" who occupied the tanks, caused quite a stir. The funhouse was so successful that it reopened for a second season, but once torn down it faded from memory and its outlandishness became the stuff of urban myth. Now, more than 60 years later, a collection of photographs of the Dream of Venus by Eric Schaal has been discovered. In stunning black-and-white and early Kodachrome, they show both the construction and the completion of the funhouse-from Dal painting a melting clock to showgirls parading for their audience. Salvador Dal's Dream of Venus reveals not only an eccentric work of architecture, but also a one-of-a-kind creation by one of the most fertile imaginations of the 20th century.

First line

A small freestanding building, bristling with appendages and cast in crepuscular light, rises under a swag of red velvet.

Details

  • Title Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair
  • Author Schaffner, Ingrid
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition First Edition
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Princeton Architectural Press, New York
  • Date November 22, 2002
  • ISBN 9781568983592

About the author

Ingrid Schaffner is senior curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. She is the author of several books, including Essential Series monographs on Picasso, Matisse, Warhol, and Man Ray. She lives in New York City.
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Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus
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Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus

by Ingrid Schaffner & Eric Schaal

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Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus: The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair
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Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus: The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair

by Schaffner, Ingrid

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Princeton Architectural Press, 2002. Hardcover. Good. Former library book; Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.Ex-Library copy with typical library marks and stamps. Shelf and handling wear to cover and binding, with general signs of previous use. Slight shelf wear to boards and dust jacket. All pages are intact and unmarked, binding is sound. Secure packaging for safe delivery.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed.
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Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus : The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair
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Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus : The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair

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Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus: The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair

by Ingrid Schaffner

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Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus: The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair
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Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus: The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair

by Schaffner, Ingrid

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New York: Princeton Architectural Press. 158pp. Stated First Edition. First Printing, complete printing number line. T11 . Fine. Hardcover. First Edition. 2002.
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Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus: The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair

Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus: The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair

by Ingrid Schaffner

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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Princeton Architectural Press, 2002. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Photographs by Eric Schaal.
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Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus; The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair

Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus; The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair

by Ingrid Schaffner

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  • Hardcover
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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9781568983592 / 156898359x
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New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 32 x 27.5 cm. Quarto. 160pp. Red cloth in dust jacket. Light toning to some of the page edges. Small closed tear measuring ~1c m to the head of the spine of the jacket. There is some faint scratching ot the back of the jacket.
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