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Salvador Dali Foundation, DACS, London 2008/SOCRAC

Pearl, diamond, ruby, emerald and gold Starfish brooch and butterflies by Salvador Dali

Surrealist Jewels

Jewelled Starfish brooch by Salvador Dali was a shocker in more ways than one

Spontaneity was one feature of Surrealism, the art movement which had a significant impact on the worlds of design, theatre, fashion, film, architecture, and advertising through the 1930s.

But there is nothing spontaneous about Salvador Dali’s Starfish brooch. Each arm of the life-size pearl, diamond, ruby and emerald pin is fully articulated so that it can wrap around a hand like fingers.

The brooch is just one of nine extraordinary fine jewelry pieces included in Surreal Things, an exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario which runs until August 30, 2009.

Curated by Ghislaine Wood of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the show presents the work of Surrealists Giorgio de Chirico, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Meret Oppenheim, Man Ray and Elsa Schiaparelli.

Jewelry on display includes Dali’s blood red mouth brooch featuring ruby “lips” opening to reveal white pearl “teeth” and a spectacular gold brick collar with lions’ head “fountains” spraying diamond “waterfalls” into a “river” of green peridots.

There are also three bone, wood and leather necklaces by Alexander Calder, a pair of miniature painting earrings that Yves Tangy made for Peggy Guggenheim, and an owl pendant that Pablo Picasso carved on a beach in the Riviera from pebbles and bone.

But it is the Starfish brooch with its twinkling arms that can be manipulated into any position that so perfectly captures Surrealism’s fetishism and fantasy. Alongside the pin is a photo of the brooch’s owner, the elegantly-coiffed Rebecca Harkness, at a party with Andy Warhol. She is boldly wearing the pin so that it seems to be groping her left breast. Warhol, as you might guess, is wearing a bemused grin.