A Rare White Lobster Telephone By Salvador Dali Desperately Needs A Buyer In The U.K.
One of Salvador Dali’s extremely rare white lobster telephones is in need of a buyer so that it can remain in the U.K. The iconic piece of Surrealist art known as Lobster Telephone (White Aphrodisiac) is valued at £853,047, and arts minister Michael Ellis has wisely put an export ban upon the phone in the hope that a buyer from the U.K. will eventually snap it up to keep it in the country.
The white Lobster Telephone is one of 11 lobster telephones that were commissioned by art lover Edward James in 1938, as The Guardian reported. James was a big patron of the art world at the time, especially that of Surrealism, and can be seen featured in the René Magritte painting, Not to Be Reproduced.
The amusing anecdote given for the creation of these phones is that in 1936, Salvador Dali, Edward James, and other friends were busy dining on lobsters one evening, when one of the lobster shells accidentally went flying across the room and landed on a telephone nearby, creating the new objet d’art.
Out of the 11 lobster telephones that Dali created, four of these he painted red, while the remaining seven were painted white. Their uniqueness comes not just from their color and design, but also because Salvador painstakingly painted these all carefully by hand, thereby ensuring that no two of them are alike.
Call for buyers to keep Salvador Dalí’s lobster phone in UK https://t.co/uvBSqa4j56
— The Guardian (@guardian) March 23, 2018
The majority of the remaining white lobster telephones are now in the possession of various public museums around the world, including Johannesburg, Minneapolis, Lisbon, Rotterdam, and Florida.
As Michael Ellis passionately explained to Sky News, he feels that keeping Salvador Dali’s Lobster Telephone (White Aphrodisiac) in the U.K. is in the country’s best interest and that the U.K. should make sure it retains this celebrated work of art by one of the world’s greatest artists.
“Salvador Dali was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. This iconic work was created in the UK, and I want it to remain here. It is important that we keep world-class art in this country and I hope a buyer can be found to save it for the nation.”
It is also worthwhile considering the words of Richard Calvocoressi, who spoke of how inspiring Dali’s lobster telephones have been to modern art today, with new waves of artists ushered in that also combine the natural with the surreal.
“With its suggestion of both eroticism and menace, pleasure and pain, Lobster Telephone (White Aphrodisiac) is a classic surrealist conceit, recalling the ‘trap’ sculptures of Giacometti’s surrealist phase. It also anticipates by half a century the confrontational but also playful sculptures made of manufactured and natural found objects by artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.”
If you are interested in buying Salvador Dali’s Lobster Telephone (White Aphrodisiac), all you need to do is come up with £853,047 (plus £29,000 VAT) before June 21 if you would like the telephone to remain in the U.K.
