"Shirley Temple, 1939"

Salvador Dali - Oil
Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time (or Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of Contemporary Cinema), also known as the Barcelona Sphinx is a 1939 artwork in gouache, pastel and collage on cardboard, by surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. It measures 75 cm x 100 cm (29.5 inches x 39.5 inches). It is housed in the Netherlands, at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam's principal art gallery. It was first shown at an exhibition held at the Julien Levy Gallery, New York, from March 21 to April 18, 1939 (although the exhibition catalogue does not mention the painting, an article in the New York Times mentions its presence). It has also been exhibited in 1983 at the Palau Reial de Pedralbes in Barcelona, in 1985 at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Charleroi, and again in Barcelona in 2004, at the CaixaForum. From June 1 to September 9, 2007 it was one of around 100 Dali works on display at the Tate Modern in London as part of the "Dali And Film" exhibition. It depicts the head of child star Shirley Temple, taken from a newspaper photograph, superimposed on the body of a red lioness with obvious breasts and white claws. On top of her head is a vampire bat. Surrounding the Shirley-lioness are a human skull and other bones, presumed to be from her latest kill. At the bottom of the painting is a trompe-l'œil label that reads: "Shirley!. at last in Technicolor." The painting is thought by some to be a satire of the sexualization of child stars by Hollywood.