“AT SEVEN I WANTED TO BE NAPOLEON. AND MY AMBITION HAS BEEN GROWING STEADILY EVER SINCE”: THE SECRET LIFE OF SALVADOR DALI, 1942, BOLDLY INSCRIBED BY DALI WITH HIS ORIGINAL SKETCH DATED “1971”

DALI, Salvador. The Secret Life of Salvador Dali. New York: Dial Press-Burton C. Hoffman, 1942. Quarto, original black cloth, mounted cover illustration, pictorial paper spine label, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box.

First trade edition of Dali’s autobiography, boldly inscribed by him “A Martin Riskin, Dali, 1971” with Dali’s original sketch across the half title and opposite page showing a figure standing tall in a tree-studded landscape. Recipient Riskin, a pre-eminent cultural figure, was decorated in 1979 with the French Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters. This handsomely illustrated work features three full-page color and 16 black-and-white photogravure plates, along with numerous in-text illustrations, many full page.

Dali “did not like biographers, and perhaps the well-known, but false, versions of events disseminated by the painter himself in sources such as The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí were his largely futile attempts to ‘forestall such meddlers’ and to put them on the wrong track” (Victoria L. McCard). This splendid illustrated volume prompted George Orwell, in a contemporary review, to reflect, “Some of the incidents in it are flatly incredible, others have been rearranged and romanticized, and not merely the humiliation but the persistent ordinariness of everyday life has been cut out… But as a record of fantasy, of the perversion of instinct that has been made possible by the machine age, it has great value.” Any signature by Dali is scarce, and inscribed copies with a sketch, as in this copy, are particularly elusive. Issued the same year as a limited edition of 119 copies (with original inked drawing), no priority established. Recipient Martin Riskin, a pre-eminent cultural figure born into a family of musicians that included Jasha Heifetz, became a founder of the Sibelius Society, served as president of Opera Nova, was a longtime board member of the American Symphony Orchestra, and chairman of the music committee of the National Arts Club. He notably worked with Miró, Dali and other leading artists who were commissioned by Chateau Mouton Rothschild in the design of wine labels, and in 1979 the French Minister of Culture decorated Riskin with the Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters.

Interior fine, minimal toning to spine ends of cloth, slight edge-wear, rubbing to scarce dust jacket. A near-fine presentation copy with notable provenance.