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Salvador Dali Playing Cards
Original works
Set also includes the Ace of Diamonds not shown here.
Artist: Salvador Dalí Domenech (1904-1989)
Title: Playing Cards: Jack of Diamonds
Date: 1967
Medium: Mixed Media
Size: 57 cm x 38 cm
Authenticity:    
Robert Descharnes, Paris
Nicholas Descharnes, Paris    
Frank Hunter - Director of The Salvador Dalí Archives    
Peter Lucas - Certified Member of the Appraisers Association of America
Provenance: Private American Collection
Condition: Pristine
Price: $1,200,000 (One Million Two Hundred Thousand - US Dollars) The Complete set of 4 -Ace, King, Queen and Jack of Diamonds
Playing Cards
Playing Cards by Salvador Dalí is a collection of limited edition graphics based on images from a deck of playing cards. Dalí created designs for the Ace, King, Queen, Jack, of each suit and adds a Joker. Each print is like an individual personalized Dalínian icon. Their beauty is found in the amount of delicate detailed surrealist gestures that hide throughout areas of miracle like make-believe. In perhaps one of his most surrealist efforts, if not, at least one of his most entertaining works of art, Dalí presents his playing cards in carefully quilted puzzled shaped colors. Drawing heavily on inspiration from Picasso, Dalí composes his figures out of irregularly fragmented geometric shapes drenched in deep bold and rich colors. Trapezoids and triangles fit perfectly like a surrealistic jigsaw puzzle to form the reversible cubist bodies of the King, Queen, and Jack.
    Dalí somehow manages to exhaust endless amounts of intricate creativity through this collection. He cleverly structures the faces of his royal court with numbers, animals, roses, eyes, and other notable Dalínian symbols. The result is a fantasyland of two-dimensional wonder art. Remarkably Dali's Playing Cards still resemble the classicism and aesthetics of the pictures found on a regular deck of playing cards. Dali takes his place in a long line of artist who have created project based on playing cards.
Royal Flush
Currently, we have an identical numbered set of diamonds from this suite. The Ace of diamonds is represented through Dali's most famous icon a melting clock with an ant waling across it. The King on one end has a gnarled face while on the other end sleeps gently as his nose transforms into a rhinoceros horn. The Queen is flattened into a symmetrical pose while she holds a rose in each hand. The Jack has one nose being supported by a Dalínian crutch while his other face is pressed by two drawers. This family of cards is a rarity, one for its originality, and two, for the fact that when first offered this suite was broken up and has rarely ever put together in its original setting. Only a couple of Dalí collectors in the world own matched numbered pieces from this suite, even fewer have a identical suits, and even less have an entire matched numbered set. Released in 1972, Playing Cards will be remembered as one of the most whimsical and creative projects that Dalí worked on.