Sofa and chaises longues figure prominently in
art, in such famous works as the Rokeby Venus by Velazquez,
Canova's Pauline Borghese as Venus and even, going back many
centuries, to the Etruscan sarcophagus from Cerveteri.
But, as Salvador Dali's Mae West lips sofa
demonstrated, sofas themselves could also be works of art in their
own right. With his Mae West sofa Salvador Dali, the Surrealist
genius, created one of the great icons of twentieth century
Surrealist art.
Dali was fascinated by Mae West. He painted The
Face of Mae West (Usable as a Surrealist Apartment) and then later,
with the financial support of Edward James, the wealthy patron in
West Sussex who was creating a surrealist house on his property at
West Dean (near Chichester), he designed the Mae West lips sofa
around 1938. Five copies were made by Green and Abbott. The Edward
James foundation retains three, one is owned by the Brighton Museum
and Art Gallery, and one is owned by a private collector. (The Mae
West sofa is not the only iconic Surrealist object commissioned by
Edward James and now owned by the Edward James Foundation - the
Foundation also owns the Lobster Telephone, also by Dali).
While design impact was one of Dali's goals
with his Mae West sofa, practicality and comfort were not. The sofa
was not intended for robust daily use. Comfort was even less of a
consideration. He was quoted as saying that part of his inspiration
came from a rock formation near his home in Cadaques - hardly an
inspiration for comfort.
Awareness of Mae West - the 'Brooklyn
Bombshell' - declines as time passes. In the 1960s the Mae West
lips sofa was reinterpreted, this time as the lips of Marilyn
Monroe.