When Mike Wallace interviewed Salvador Dali in 1958, the painter seemed to believe he might live forever. When he died, he asked what he believed would happen to him, and Surrealist replied, “I do not believe in my death.”
“You won’t die?”
“No, no. I believe in general death, but Dali’s death? Absolutely no, not.”
Dali died in 1989. But in a way, he was right. The artist lives in the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.
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The collection chronicles his career through over 2,400 works, from oil paintings to sculpture mashups to stunning gems. Inside the Dary Dome, the “Daria Live 360” show completely immerses visitors in his art.
“That spirit is based on Dali,” said Hankhain, the museum’s executive director. “I mean, Dali was always trying to do things in new ways. What’s amazing about Dali is that his influence is still felt today not only in art but in culture as well.”
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Today, Salvador Dali may be a common name, but his name initially belonged to the son of his parents’ firstborn. “His parents named him after his dead siblings,” Hein said. “It can add him with the burden of his lifelong identity and explain much of his art. For example, a double image of him, you can see one thing. And you can see another.
Many of Dali’s works combine reality with surreality. It is a juxtaposition that he can pull apart thanks to his training as an accurate classical painter. “He can paint like an old master, but he wasn’t happy to stay there,” said program director Kim McAale.
She said Dali found inspiration by digging deep into her subconscious. “He was very interested in the writings of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. And when he cuts the drawer into Venus, what would happen if he opened the drawer and opened someone and could really see them?”
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As far as it tickets go, Dali’s famous painting of melted clock, The Stistence of Memory, is actually found in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. But his follow-up is here, hanging in a state museum in Dali.
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The artist had no connection to St. Petersburg, Florida. But what he had was two extremely big fans. Affluent Ohio couples Eleanor and Reynolds Morse bought a painting of Dali to celebrate their first anniversary. They acquired everything from Dali’s early Cubist paintings to the massive religious-themed canvas that followed him.
Hein said, “They loved Dali so much that they were able to buy Dali alone for 40 years and put together a collection of Dali outstanding in the world.”
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When the Morse family decided to donate their collection in the late 1970s, they insisted it would all go to one place, but the museum did not step up. After the Wall Street Journal wrote the article (“American Art World Dilly Dallie around Dalis”), the people in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, “Well, we’ll take it.” The city agreed to find a collection building, a marine warehouse that opened in 1982 as the Dali Museum.
In 2011, the collection moved to its current location. There, they come to see the paintings that Mores’ son Brad once covered his childhood home. “Even the wall space that didn’t paint Dali was square feet or inches,” he said.
In fact, Dali’s 1956 oil painting, “Nature Morte Vivante (still life movement)” was hung on a bed in Brad Morse.
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Now, more than 300,000 visitors a year have come to see the fascinating way Dali saw the world.
McAle said, “Dali had a really great quote. I think it shows how he saw himself and how he saw the world. He thought seeing him as he did would definitely change your perspective.”
Dali was recognized as eccentric. Especially in his later years, he was also known for his wild persona due to his art. But in death, his work earned more critical appreciation.
“I don’t think his fame is over,” Hein said. “The Dali star is still rising in the world, mainly because of what he proposed in his art about the ability to see the world differently,” he said, “what we really need in this world today.”
Web Extra: Why is Salvador Dalli’s watch melting? (video)
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A story created by Jay Carnis. Editor: Chad Cardin.
