Henri Rondeau Donates Five Dali Prints to Shafer Gallery

Henri Rondeau's attraction to fine art turned into a fine gift five times over for Barton County Community College's Shafer Gallery. Rondeau donated five authentic Salvador Dali photo-offset lithographs, four of them from the Ivanhoe suite, published in 1979. Dalí was a Spanish surrealist painter of the 20th century who lived from 1904 to 1989. Rondeau, an architect who inspected the Shafer Gallery a decade ago while it was being built, purchased the Dali prints in New York more than 20 years ago as an investment. Along with the prints, he also donated the inspection reports and blueprints of the Shafer Gallery. "If I was more gymnastic, I'd be doing somersaults and cartwheels right now, but I'm not, so it's all internal," said Shafer Gallery Director Bill Forst when he received the prints in late January. "How can you not be happy about receiving five prints by an internationally known artist? Here we are on the edge of western Kansas and we're showing these in our gallery." From the Ivanhoe suite, four prints donated by Rondeau are "King Richard," "The Overseer," "Wilfred of Ivanhoe" and "Rowena." Each print is the first of only 150 ever produced. The fifth print is titled "Paradise Lost" from the Les Vitraux suite and is No. 51 of 250 produced. Dali hand-signed each print after completion to demonstrate his approval of its quality and fidelity to his art. The Dali prints are currently on exhibit in the Shafer Gallery, along with other recent acquisitions by the gallery. The recent acquisition exhibit will remain available for public viewing through Feb. 22. Under the influence of the surrealist movement, Dali's artistic style evolved into a blend of precise realism and dreamlike fantasy that became his trademark. His paintings combined meticulous draftsmanship and detail with a unique and stimulating imagination. Dali often described his pictures as "hand-painted dream photographs." He used certain favorite and recurring images, such as the human figure with half-open drawers protruding from it, burning giraffes, and watches bent and flowing as if made from melting wax. He is credited for creating a new movement in art. Although he had other pursuits in the art realm -- including jewelry design, film production and clothing -- his paintings and graphic works remain the pinnacle of his sweeping importance and mystifying genius. To this day, they hang in museums all over the world. He is the only artist in history to have two separate museums dedicated exclusively to his works erected during his lifetime: The Salvador Dali Museum in Florida and Theatre Museo Dali in Spain.

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