Artist: Salvador Dali 

Portfolio: Salvador Dalí’s 1967 portfolio based on the poems of Mao Tse-Tung (Mao Zedong), 

Medium: Etching with colors

Size: 18 x 11 in sheet

Signature: Hand signed by the artist lower right

Edition: 34/150 

Publisher: Pierre Argillet (1967)

A rare and highly desirable impression from this portfolio 

Condition: Great condition 

Mao Tse-Tung, the iconic figure and absolute leader of Communist China and leader of the Cultural Revolution in China, was also surprisingly a calligrapher and graceful and eloquent poet. Amid the Cultural Revolution in China, followed by the May 1968 riots in France, Pierre Argillet brought the book “Poems” by Mao Tse-Tung to Dalí. Tickled, the artist decided to create eight illustrations, some of which were political satires. The “Hundred Flowers” are shown as towering fleurs de-lis, symbols of royalty, with people attempting to reach them. Crowns emerge from the “River of Plenty.” When Argillet asked Dalí why his “Bust of Mao” was headless in a Chinese uniform, Dalí replied: “Well, the man is so tall that he didn’t fit on the page!”—“And what about these small dancing “Demons?”—“To the Chinese, they are Japanese!” The “Dragon” is a female monster, the “Three Mountains of Peace” are hardly larger than rocks, and the “Turtle Mountain,” shown as gigantic, antediluvian animals, wanders in the midst of excrements resembling the Yin and Yang symbol. As to the splendid “Small Horses,” their pirouettes call to mind the Renaissance period but also the longing for freedom. © Argillet Collection.