Salvador Dalí may be best known for his surrealist masterpieces like “The Persistence of Memory” and “The Elephants.” But the Spanish artist also created a suite of paintings to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel.
Now, “Aliyah, the Rebirth of Israel” can be seen in a new exhibit at a Holocaust museum on Long Island.
The Holocaust Memorial Tolerance Center in Glen Cove is showcasing a rare, complete collection of 25 lithographs made from Dalí’s “Aliyah Suite,” commissioned in 1966 by arts book publisher Samuel Shore in New York.
“It’s a complete set, which is quite rare right now, because very often these are broken up and sold individually,” said Jolanta Zamecka, vice chair of the board of directors of the Holocaust Memorial Tolerance Center. “So we are really very lucky.”
The iconic painter created “Aliyah Suite” using gouache, watercolors and India ink on paper; the mixed-media paintings were then reproduced and published in a limited edition of 250 sets of 25 lithographs.
The paintings depict people and events that span thousands of years of Jewish history, from the biblical period of the Land of Israel through the Yishuv period, the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. They reference biblical events such as the creation story and the destruction of the temples in Jerusalem, and the series also references mid-century historical events including the sailing of the Eliyahu Golomb — a ship named for one of the founders of the Haganah Zionist paramilitary force during the British Mandate for Palestine — which served as a rescue vessel for Holocaust survivors from Europe.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Dalí took some artistic liberties in his paintings. In his rendering of the Eliyahu Golomb, for example, the ship sinks. In reality, however, after a high-profile hunger strike protesting the British government’s limits on immigration to Palestine, more than 1,000 refugee passengers successfully boarded one of the two ships from Italy and set sail in May 1946.
In another image referencing the biblical quote about making the desert into “a pool of water,” Dalí illustrates the National Water Carrier of Israel, which transfers fresh water from the Kinneret throughout the rest of the country.
Other pieces depict a circumcision, a group dancing the hora around a seven-branch menorah, and various images portraying the Holocaust, including victims behind barbed wire.
The series of paintings made their debut at the former Gallery of Modern Art at Columbus Circle in New York City on April 1, 1968.
In his introductory letter to the painting portfolio, David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, wrote, “The distinguished artist Salvador Dali succeeded through the power of his artistry in embodying in a number of prints the marvel of aliyah, which in a short time fashioned a renewed people, a renewed country, and a renewed — as well as — renewing — state.”
A painting of Ben-Gurion reading the Declaration of Independence, too, was included in the series. (In 1968, Dalí painted Ben-Gurion again in a collection titled “Famous Men,” as well as Moshe Dayan, the Israeli minister of defense, recognizable for his eyepatch.)
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This particular suite of lithographs was previously in the hands of the Nassau County Museum of Art. It was sold at auction for $31,505 to private collectors in 2021 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and is currently on loan to the Holocaust Memorial Tolerance Center.
“To us, what is important here at the Holocaust Center is that this becomes really a very crucial time when the need for historical truth is more important than ever,” Zamecka said. “This is the rebirth of Israel, especially regarding the Jewish exile in return of the Jews to their homeland. And so by highlighting the rebirth, this exhibit bridges the past to the present, and it’s grounding us in the enduring relevance of these pivotal events.”
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