Symbole agnostique (Agnostic Symbol), 1932

Painted in 1932.

A thin, elongated spoon emerges from a cracked wall in the top right of the canvas, jutting towards the opposite corner, only snaking around a rock that stands in its way. On close inspection, a tiny clock can be seen inside the spoon. The precise, sharp rendering of the metal spoon stands in contrast to the plain, softly painted background. In rendering this mysterious scene dominated by a familiar, yet distorted object and its shadow, Dalí explores the world of hallucination and irrationality. The imagery of clocks and spoons is a recurrent motif in Dalí’s art in this period, used for their evocative rather than symbolic value.

Agnostic Symbol (1932) was first in the collection of Ladislas Szecsi, a Hungarian-born art collector, critic, dealer and painter. Based in Paris in the interwar period, Szecsi later moved to New York, changing his name to Ladislas Segy. In 1937, Agnostic Symbol was acquired by the famed American collectors Louise and Walter C. Arensberg. Based in New York and later in California, the Arensbergs were avid collectors of avant-garde art. Their homes were a meeting place for the leading artists, writers and intellectuals of the day, and they became particularly close to Marcel Duchamp. In 1950, the Arensbergs presented their collection of over a thousand works, including the present painting, to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.