“This Dalí artwork masterfully blends landscape with portraiture, creating a vast desert scene where a monumental rock formation eerily reveals a hidden human face, inviting you to question what is real and what is imagined.”
A vast, desolate landscape unfolds before you, dominated by a towering, ambiguous structure that seems to shift between architectural form and a monumental human head. This watercolor and ink drawing from 1940, titled "Hidden Faces," invites a close look at its multiple readings. The muted tones of the desert are punctuated by the stark contrast of dark lines, defining contours and suggesting hidden depths. Notice how the central form, while appearing solid, also dissolves into suggestions of eyes, a nose, and a mouth, creating a disquieting sense of a presence embedded within the very earth. The work was created during a period when the artist had moved to the United States, and it reflects a continued exploration of dream imagery and the subconscious that characterized his surrealist output.
- Artist
- Salvador Dalí
- Date
- 1940
- Medium
- Watercolor and brush and black ink on off-white wove paper, laid down on off-white wove paper
- Location
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Dimensions
- 58.7 × 73.8 cm (23 1/8 × 29 1/16 in.)
- Collection
- Prints and Drawings
- Culture
- Spain
- Credit line
- Gift of Mr. John Muldoon, Jr.
What to Notice
Five details hide in plain sight. Here’s where to look.
The way the central rock formation transforms into a human face.
The small, silhouetted figures on the horizon, dwarfed by the landscape.
The delicate washes of watercolor creating the vast desert sky.
The precise brush and ink lines that define the structure's features.
1 more detail is waiting.
See all 5 in Art Whisper →Stand in front of it and listen
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Salvador Dalí
1904–1989 · SpainDalí painted melting clocks and dream logic with the precision of an Old Master — then became the most famous eccentric alive.
Further Works by Dalí
Untitled (Desert Landscape)
1934 · Art Institute of Chicago
A Chemist Lifting with Extreme Precaution the Cuticle of a Grand Piano
1936 · Art Institute of Chicago
Inventions of the Monsters
1937 · Art Institute of Chicago
Untitled (Dream of Venus) formerly Visions of Eternity
1939 · Art Institute of Chicago
Gala
1931 · Dalí Theatre and Museum
Portrait of Gala with Two Lamb Chops in Equilibrium upon Her Shoulder
1934 · Art Institute of Chicago
City of Drawers
1936 · Art Institute of Chicago
Venus de Milo with Drawers
1936 · Art Institute of Chicago
More from Surrealism
More works to explore
Beyond Dalí and Surrealism: works from the same years.
Same era · 1920s–1950s
Greyed Rainbow
Jackson Pollock · 1953 · Art Institute of Chicago
Same era · 1920s–1950s
Sun Spot
Yayoi Kusama · 1953 · Art Institute of Chicago
Same era · 1920s–1950s
Deux personnages
Pierre Alechinsky · 1950
Same era · 1920s–1950s
Divided and Divided
Ivan Puni · 1941 · Art Institute of Chicago
Same era · 1920s–1950s
Nighthawks
Okada Saburosuke · 1942 · Art Institute of Chicago
Same era · 1920s–1950s
The Indestructibles
Philip Evergood · 1946 · Art Institute of Chicago
Same era · 1920s–1950s
Straße mit Passanten bei Nachtbeleuchtung
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner · 1927 · Museum Frieder Burda
Same era · 1920s–1950s
Red No. 2
Sam Francis · 1954 · Art Institute of Chicago
Same era · 1920s–1950s
Dancing Girl
Paul Klee · 1940 · Art Institute of Chicago
Same era · 1920s–1950s
Spanish Physician
Max Ernst · 1940 · Art Institute of Chicago
Same era · 1920s–1950s
Study for a Composition
Piet Mondrian · 1940 · Art Institute of Chicago
Same era · 1920s–1950s
Girl in Yellow and Blue with Guitar
Henri Matisse · 1939 · Art Institute of Chicago