The Spiritual Art of Salvador Dali: A Holiday Exhibition Featuring the Complete Collection of Dali's Biblia Sacra and Divine

William Bennett Gallery is proud to present The Spiritual Art of Salvador Dalí exhibiting for the first time in it’s entirety, the five-volume work of Salvador Dalí’s Biblia Sacra, featuring the complete 105 original lithographs, published in 1969 by Rizzoli Editions, Milan, Italy, and the complete six-volume, 100 lithographs of Dalí’s German edition of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy published by Editions d’Art les Heures Claires. Both collections will be on view and available for sale from December 11, 2007–January 9, 2008. The William Bennett Gallery is located at 65 Greene Street, between Spring Street and Broome Street, in the heart of Soho’s gallery district. Price is available upon request.

BIBLIA SACRA
Dalí’s Biblia Sacra is the largest issued suite of the Spanish master’s work. The portfolio was commissioned by leading patron Dr. Giuseppe Albaretto, who was determined to redeem what he felt were Dalí’s wayward views by leading him back towards the Catholic Church by using the Holy Bible. Subsequently, these exquisite works illustrate Dali’s renewed ties to Christianity as well as his profound personal spirituality.

DIVINE COMEDY
In the early 1950’s Dalí was commissioned by the Italian government to create illustrations of the text of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy in honor of the upcoming septocentennial (700 year anniversary) of the poet’s birth.

Over nine years in the making, the works were completed in 1960 and subsequently published as a set of six volumes between 1960 and 1964 by Dalí’s close friend, French art publisher Joseph Foret, at Editions d’Art les Heaures Claires. The suite, comprised of 100 watercolors, contains incredible imagery ranging from the grotesque to the sublime as Dalí follows Dante from the deepest circles of Hell, up the mountain of Purgatory, and into heavenly Paradise.

According to the Official Catalog of the Graphic Works of Salvador Dalí, published by the Salvador Dalí Archives, only around 386, of the 1000 permitted, of the Divine Comedy German edition were ever completed.