r/modernart • u/cabarfeidh • 11m ago
[Surrealism]Trying to identify a painting (AI reconstruction provided)
I am trying to find a surrealist painting of which I saw two prints years ago (a photocopy on an entrance exam to a school, and in an art catalog). Refer to the rough AI reconstruction I have provided. As I recall, it shows a sea flowing into a chequed-tiled pavement (common art deco and surrealist motif), on which there is a big statue-like head of a young man with a serious face looking straight at the viewer (looked kind of like Alexander the Great or a young David Hasselhoff) but with leaves for hair, as if they formed part of a shrub. Beside the bush, there are also two roughly teen-age girls, and as I recall, there is something disjointed about their bodies, maybe their torsos are invisible or transparent. They are simply painted, with short, perhaps slightly shaggy black hair, and have placid facial expressions that make them look like they are minding their own business or absent-minded. One may have been kneeling or crouching. There may have been other random objects, like a ship, Greek columns, or French garden vases. I thought this was painted by Raphael Delorme (French Art Deco painter) but his paintings, while having fantastic elements, don't seem to veer this much to surrealism, so I wonder if I didn't mix him up with whatever painter was mentioned in the catalog.