The auction's painting by Marie-Louise Ekman is a brilliant example of her highly personal surrealism: colorful, every day life, boundless, and humorous.
The 1971 painting contains clear references to the surrealist Salvador Dalí. His iconic work 'The Riddle of Wilhelm Tell' was added to Moderna Museet's collection in 1967. Dalí painted the work in 1933 and the motif is full of references to his time. A human-like figure with a large growth from one of the buttocks dominates the painting, a motif that in Ekman's work has been transferred to his own home. The woman is looking for herself in the reflection; she is moving away from the man on the other side of the painting. Her two extra legs are clenched tightly together, clearly signaling that she is not interested in his invitation. The man, as so often in Ekman's work, has an expressionless face. He sits on a stool and smokes, wearing an outfit reminiscent of both Starke Adolf's tights and Picasso's circus performers.
Ekman experimented with Dalí's painting in a more obvious way a few years later in her career, when she (in the spirit of the times) appropriated the work of other artists. She produced a number of paintings with titles such as 'A Salvador Dali Man and an Olle Baertling Painting' (1980) and 'A Dali Monument, a Picasso Monument and an Olle Baertling Painting' (1980).