Selznick International Pictures, Los Angeles (acquired from the artist in 1945)
Private Collection (acquired in 2006 and sold: Christie's, New York, November 4, 2010, lot 437)
Acquired at the above sale

London, Tate Modern; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; St. Petersburg, Florida, Salvador Dalí Museum; New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Dalí & Film, 2007-08

 

Ronald Haver, David O. Selznick's Hollywood, New York, 1980, illustrated p. 349

Overall the work is in very good condition. The work comprises two large canvas drops attached by a horizontal seam visible from the backside. The left and right edges of the backdrop are not hemmed, but the top and bottom edges are finished with a row of rigging ties and folded sleeve for a boom, respectively. The work has previously been folded and rolled for storage, resulting in vertical and horizontal lines on the surface of the canvas that are visible to the naked eye, notably in the upper left and upper right quadrants. The upper right quadrant also shows some stray vertical lines of white pigment. The canvas and paint layer appear thin in some places.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Encapsulating the oneiric visions of the two great masters of Surrealism and suspense, Salvador Dalí and Alfred Hitchcock, Desert Landscape is a stunning set-design for the film "Spellbound" directed in 1945. Uniting painting and film-making, this work is testament to perhaps one of Dalí's most interesting and famous artistic collaborations. Based upon the 1927 novel The House of Dr. Edwardes, Hitchcock's "Spellbound" is without doubt one of hi🔯s most famous psychological thrillers starring, amongst others, Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. It was the first motion picture to fully embrace psychoanalysis and Freudian thought.

A panoramic view of one of Dalí's typical surrealist motifs, the grand scale of this work allows the view💟er to be immersed in the evocative landscape, shifting between metamorphosis and stasis, form and matter, weightlessness and gravity. We are invited into a delirious and quasi-nightmarish setting, marking the artist's belief in the crea😼tive use of set-design in film.

Narrating the story of a murder, evoked through the relationship between a psychoanalyst, Dr. Constance Petersen, and her patient, Dr. Anthony Edwards, this design acted as a vision to analyze one of the patient's dreams. Recurring with psychoanalytical symbols, this dream-sequence is of pivotal importance both to film studies and the artistic associations between vision and the psyche. Only Dalí would have been able to interpret and visualize such a moment. Hitchcock states: "What I was after was...the vividness of dreams...[A]ll Dalí's work is very solid and very sharp, with very long perspectives and black shadows...Dalí was the best man for me to do the dreams because that is what dreams should be" (quoted in S. Cochran, "Spellbound", in Dalí and Film (exhibition catalogue), ꧋D. Ades, ed., Tate Modern, London; Los Angeles County Muse💦um of Art, Los Angeles; Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida & Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2007-08, p. 178).

Fig. 1&nbs𝔉p; Film still from the dream sequence in Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound." A portion of the present work is visible as the backdrop.