Template:Did you know nominations/Dalí Atomicus

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by PrimalMustelid talk 16:50, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Dalí Atomicus

Salvador Dalí jumping while three cats fly through the air

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Dalí Atomicus (1948)

Unretouched version of Dalí Atomicus, with wires visible

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Dalí Atomicus, unretouched

• ... that before photographer Philippe Halsman decided to photograph three cats flying through the air (pictured), surrealist artist Salvador Dalí had wanted to blow up a duck with dynamite?

  source:	https://archive.today/20231008234446/https://news.artnet.com/art-world/tiktok-cancel-salvador-dali-2313418
  	... a collaboration between Dalí and the photographer Phillippe [sic] Halsman, in which three cats are seen flying through the air .... "Dalí said, 'I have an idea. Let's take a duck and put some dynamite up his derriere and blow him up.' And my father said, 'Oh you can't do that. You're in America. You might get arrested,'" Irene Halsman recounted ....

  • reviewed: mourning stationery
  • comment:

    i declare that i am not aware of having any conflict of interest with dalí atomicus.

    i'm not sure if a descriptive caption would be better than one that simply stated the name of the work, so have provided a few alternatives for discussion.

    i did not provide links to the articles on the artists as that seems to be the current practice at dyk.

    the unretouched version appears to be in the public domain, as noted by the library of congress here. i believe the final version is too, as it was printed in life with a copyright notice ("© 1948 PHILIPPE HALSMAN"), and i found no evidence here that halsman renewed the copyright.

    i am admittedly still working on the article, but wanted to nominate it before the deadline passed.

created by dying (talk). self-nominated at 23:45, 15 October 2023 (UTC).

• I shall have a look. Schwede66 00:02, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Created seven days ago and nominated today, i.e. that's just on time. Neutral. Suitably referenced. Earwig is clean. The problem is that the article is a stub with hardly any prose (385 B) and a very long off the 1,500 B that is set as the minimum for DYK eligibility. Hence, short of a major expansion, this nomination will have to be rejected. The other problem is that the hook fact does not appear in the article! Schwede66 00:09, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

  apologies, Schwede66! i've already done the research to expand the article to the appropriate length, but am still typing it up. i just wanted to nominate the article before the deadline, as i mentioned above. (i admittedly ended up spending entirely too much time researching whether halsman renewed the copyright.) i should have the article properly expanded within a day, at which point it should include the hook fact. is that alright? dying (talk) 01:01, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Sure; that'll be fine. I suppose I reviewed it "as is". Schwede66 01:05, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Schwede66, i have now expanded the article. please let me know if you encounter any issues. thanks for your patience! dying (talk) 23:57, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• What a great article. Thoroughly enjoyed reading that one! Earwig appears to be down. Otherwise, the article now passes all the required checks. A minor content issue is that the two photos are described as being side-by-side, but on any of the three screens that I've checked (cellphone, laptop, big screen), they are on top of one another – please fix the caption. QPQ has been done. Hook is certainly interesting and the hook fact is referenced. The other snag is that the main photo is currently up for deletion; I suggest we park this until that issue has resolved itself as it's certainly a strong contender for a lead hook. Schwede66 02:29, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

  thanks, Schwede66! i'm glad you enjoyed reading it. yes, i agree that the nomination should be put on hold due to the deletion discussion.

  also, thanks for pointing out the caption issue! i completely forgot about the possibility that one photo could appear above the other instead of next to it. i was trying to figure out if replacing "(left)" with "(left or top)" would be appropriate when i realized that there was actually no need to state that the photos were juxtaposed to allow for easy comparison, as this should be self-evident.

  i believe i've now reformatted the gallery so that it is platform independent. please let me know if this is not the case. dying (talk) 15:59, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

• @Schwede66: Comments on the above? Z1720 (talk) 17:38, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

• Earwig is clean. Caption is resolved. Dying, could you please keep an eye on the deletion discussion and give me a ping when that's been resolved? Schwede66 17:47, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

  of course, Schwede66. dying (talk) 17:59, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

  Schwede66, i'm just letting you know that the discussion has now been closed. the file was kept. dying (talk) 10:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Halsman took the photo in 1948, so what's a few more months? It's such an incredible photo; in my view, this should definitely be the lead hook. Hence my preference is to wait it out. Schwede66 07:19, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, the former version of the photo is unambiguously in the public domain (and is a featured picture on Commons). The retouched version with the brighter tones is the one to which the DR applies. This can be approved now and run as an image hook. Vaticidalprophet 16:07, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

i'm in no rush, and don't mind waiting it out. also, as the unretouched version has previously appeared on the main page, i think it would be nice to give the final version a chance to be featured on the main page as well. dying (talk) 17:59, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

• Given the lack of progress with the nomination, would anyone here be open to the hook running without an image? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 05:10, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

• I'd rather wait. Schwede66 07:41, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
  • There's a limit to how long we can or should wait at DYK. If this hasn't been settled by the end of the year, it should run regardless, though the copyright notice referred to in the deletion discussion should be enough to keep this from the main page, as even if the image is moved to Wikipedia, it isn't free and thus can't be used on the main page. Further, if it seems unlikely at the present time that it will be settled by the end of the year, I think we should run it now. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:55, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

• Fair enough. I've asked on the administrators' noticeboard whether someone could please close the deletion request. Schwede66 01:12, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

• A Commons admin has closed the deletion discussion as "keep". That clears the final hurdle. I recommend that this be considered for the lead hook. Schwede66 12:48, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Note that this will be challenged at Errors if it is placed as a lead hook: the Museum of Modern Art's web page lists its copyright as "© 2023 Halsman Estate"; as the current owners of the work, they should know this. It is puzzling in the extreme that this was close "Keep" when both comments suggested that it be moved to Wikipedia, since there's probably a case to be made for non-free display in articles and the like. However, don't expect to get the image on the main page when a major museum says it's currently under copyright; doing so would put Wikipedia at risk of a copyright violation. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:01, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
    • i have written my reasoning behind why i think dalí atomicus is in the public domain here. it is admittedly somewhat lengthy, so i did not think it was appropriate to reproduce in full in this nomination. dying (talk) 04:59, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
      • That's a stunning piece of work, dying. Well done. Schwede66 08:33, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
        • It is, and having now read the 2008 Commons deletion discussion (it was kept) as well as dying's reasoning, it appears that there was no copyright renewal in 1976 or thereabouts according to the Library of Congress. This seems to be the case of the Halsman estate (and MOMA) asserting a copyright that is not, in fact, valid. It's a shame that so many copyrights lapsed through failure to renew, but there you are. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:33, 19 December 2023 (UTC)