Salvador Dali. Les Diners De Gala. Felicie Inc., 1973.

Price: US$2995.00 + shipping

Condition: Fine

Description: Fine Copy In like Jacket.First Edition in Gold Foil. Signed By Dali. Exquisite Beautiful Copy.Very Scarce Signed.

Seller: Jeff Bergman Books ABAA, ILAB, Flemington, NJ, U.S.A.

Dali, Salvador. Les Diners de Gala.. Felicie, Inc. Publishers, New York, 1973.

Price: US$7200.00 + shipping

Description: First edition of this extravagant, lavishly illustrated cookbook created by Dalà in honor of his wife, Gala. Quarto, original color-printed pictorial cloth, pictorial endpapers, illustrated throughout. Translated by Captain J. Peter Moore. Association copy, inscribed by Salvador Dali with a double-page inscription and drawing on the copyright page and opposite page, "For Jean Vergnes 1976 Le oen de la Cuisine Dali." Dali has added an original portrait of Vergnes and a dripping spoon. With an additional presentation card inscribed by famed American restaurant critic Gael Greene laid in on Greene's custom stationary, "To Jean Vergnes with love from his great admirer Gael Greene 1-27-76." The recipient, Jean Vergnes, was a classically trained and highly acclaimed French chef, best-known as the co-founder of the famed Manhattan eatery Le Cirque, which opened in 1974. Vergnes had a major influence on American restaurant culture for more than four decades. He began his career working as a chef at various top restaurants in Paris during World War II, with a brief stop in Bermuda before moving to the United States in 1950. Classically trained in the French tradition, he was soon working in the kitchen of the Waldorf-Astoria, then as the youngest executive chef of the legendary Colony Restaurant, and finally as co-founder of Le Cirque, one of the most dazzling culinary jewels of New York since its opening in 1974. From 1986 to 1992, Daniel Boulud was executive chef of Le Cirque and in 1995, it was awarded the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Restaurant. From the library of Jean Vergnes and thence by descent. Near fine in the original decorative stiff paper dust jacket which is in near fine condition. “When six years old I wanted to be a cook.” At age 68, Dalà fulfilled that ambition in this book. His careful selection of menus and recipes, “with its precepts and its illustrations, is uniquely devoted to the pleasures of Taste. Don’t look for dietetic formulas here. We intend to ignore those charts and tables in which chemistry takes the place of gastronomy. If you are a disciple of one of those calorie-counters who turn the joys of eating into a form of punishment, close this book at once; it is too lively, too aggressive and far too impertinent for you.” With color plates and in-text photographs and illustrations on nearly every one of the 322 pages. The colophon reads, “The divine Salvador Domenech Philippe Hyacinthe Dalà conceived and materialized this work dedicated to Gala. All the recipes in this cook book, never before published, have been elaborated with great precision by a ‘chef’ wishing to remain in the most secret anonymity.” Gala was DalÃ’s wife and muse.

Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.

DALI, SALVADOR. Les Diners de Gala [The Dali Cookbook]. Felicie, New York, 1973.

Price: US$9500.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, WITH MAGNIFICENT PRESENTATION INSCRIPTIONS, DRAWINGS, AND "PAPER SCULPTURE" BY DALI. On the inscription and drawings: Dali lavishly decorated the endpapers of this copy, writing in thick black marker (and taking up over half the page): "Pour MR Riskin / Hommage / Dali." Beneath his inscription, he dated it (1974) and drew what looks to be a large version of one of his spinning men. Dali scraped the paper at the base of one of the figure's arms to create something resembling a hand. On the facing page, Dali created something even more unusual: He drew a bug, but molded and scraped the paper to create a three-dimensional exoskeleton for the creature. Finally, on the page facing the title page, Dali added another inscription: "with apologies for the translation / Dali / 1974". The book: "Les Diners de Gala, the opulent cookbook that [Dali] conceived and illustrated, sets out a surrealist gastro-aesthetics that is at once visceral and ascetic, Dionysian and Catholic. [It] showcases Dali's ornamentation of menus from such legendary restaurants as Maxim's and La Tour d'Argent and features the recipes of their chefs. Dali stages himself within the sumptuous culinary mise-en-scene. Les Diners de Gala moves between 'sado-masochistic pleasure', 'acute sybaritism', Rabelaisian scatology, religious ecstasy, and anaesthetic asceticism." (Richard Gough, On Cooking). With 136 recipes in 12 categories: exotic dishes; eggs & sea food; first course; meats; snails & frogs; fish & shell fish; game & poultry; pork; vegetables; aphrodisiacs; desserts; hors-d' oeuvre. The book is stunningly illustrated throughout with surrealistic full-color images of food, figures, and wild scenes sprung from Dali's imagination. Provenance: The recipient, Martin Riskin, was an influential member of the New York art scene, serving as the banquet director at the St. Regis Hotel during the 1960s and '70s (an appropriate association for this book), where he befriended Salvador Dalí and also held hospitality positions at The Plaza, The Pierre and The Waldorf-Astoria. He was culturally diverse, serving as a founder of the New York Youth Symphony, the Puccini Foundation and the World of Musicians, and as a board member of the American Symphony Orchestra. Through his activity in contemporary art circles he was friends with Miró and Chagall (among others) as well as Dalí. Translated by Captain J. Peter Moore. New York: Felicie, 1973. Quarto, original cloth, original illustrated foil dust jacket. A few superficial scratches to dust jacket, otherwise fine. One of the most interesting presentation copies of a Dali book we've handled. Original cloth, original dust jacket

Seller: Manhattan Rare Book Company, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.