Salvador Dalí’s Necrophiliac Spring (1936) will be on view in the United Kingdom for the first time as part of “Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art” at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A Museum). The upcoming show, dedicated to Elsa Schiaparelli and her fashion house, opens on March 28th and extends through November 8th.
Necrophiliac Spring features a figure with a flower-studded head who stands in a torn dress next to a fisherman. It draws on the landscape of Rosas in Port Lligat, Spain. Schiaparelli—an Italian couturier known for uniting fashion and Surrealist art through collaborations with figures like Dalí—owned the painting for years. It inspired one of her most famous designs, the “Tear Dress,” which debuted in 1938 with red trompe l’oeil slashes across the fabric.
“The painting connects Dalí’s and Schiaparelli’s biographies,” Rosalind McKever, curator of paintings and drawing at the V&A Museum, told Artsy. “Dalí painted it soon after returning to Spain from Paris, and the setting is based on the beach at Rosas, near Dalí’s home village of Port Lligat, itself present as a street of fishing barracas with a seated fisherman. The flower-headed figure recalls Schiaparelli’s claim in her autobiography, Shocking Life, that as a child she planted flower seeds in her nose and mouth to grow more beautiful.”
Necrophiliac Spring has been exhibited sparingly since its 1936 debut in New York. It was last shown in the 2011 “Surrealism in Paris” exhibition at Basel’s Fondation Beyeler.
“Dalí and Schiaparelli were friends from the mid-1930s,” McKever said, noting that the pair collaborated several times. The two designed the “Shoe Hat,” the “Skeleton Dress,” and the “Lobster Dress,” all of which will be on view in the exhibition. “He considered her couture salon on Place Vendôme to be the beating heart of surrealist Paris and provided some of its more eccentric decor,” she said.
“Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art” brings together more than 200 objects spanning fashion, fine art, photography, and design. Alongside garments and accessories, it includes works by figures associated with Surrealism and modernist art, reflecting Schiaparelli’s collaborations with artists including Jean Cocteau, Alberto Giacometti, and Man Ray. The show will also trace the evolution of the Schiaparelli fashion house.
“This exhibition celebrates her enduring influence through iconic collaborations with 20th-century masters and a pioneering fusion of creativity and commerce,” Delphine Bellini, CEO of Schiaparelli, said in a statement. “The Victoria and Albert Museum offers the perfect setting to showcase her legacy alongside [artistic director] Daniel Roseberry’s creations, which carry her surrealist spirit forward, blurring lines with bold, sculptural designs that both honour and reinvent her vision for a new century.”
