( Salvador Dali) LÉONARDO BENATOV (1889-1972) Homage to Dali - Lot 267

( Salvador Dali) LÉONARDO BENATOV (1889-1972) Homage to Dali, the hard and the soft Bronze (brown patina). FondeurValsuani. Print run 16/350 H.: 30.6 cm Bibliography: The larger plaster version is reproduced as no. 674 in: Robert et Nicolas Descharnes, Dali Le dur et le mou, Eccart,2003, p. 268 In a recording from 2001, Dali's photographer and friend Robert Descharnes, who later became his biographer, recounts the scene: "That day, he (Dali) was sitting on the terrace when the fishermen returned to the port: 'Monsieur Dali, we caught a dolphin in our nets, but it died'. Immediately, he reacted: We've got to do something," he said. He then set himself up and prepared a series of shots with the dolphin and this extraordinary piece of rock from Cap de Creus, which he saw as a contradiction. Here, Dali contrasts two states: "hard and soft must be equivalent in the classical work; if they are also parallel, they reach the courtly perfection of Palladian structures". For the centenary of his friend Dali's birth in 2003, Leonardo Benatov sculpted in plaster a work he called "Hard and Soft", based on photographs by Robert Descharnes.