Salvador Dalí Museum

Biographical museum in the United States

For other Salvador Dalí museums, see Dalí Museum.

Salvador Dalí Museum

The Salvador Dalí Museum features a spherical atrium at the entrance (2011).

Location within Florida

Established| 7 March 1982
Location| St. Petersburg, Florida, US
Coordinates| 27°45′58″N 82°37′53″W﻿ / ﻿27.7660°N 82.6315°W﻿ / 27.7660; -82.6315
Type| Art museum
Accreditation| AAM
Architect| HOK
Website| thedali.org
Structural engineer| Walter P. Moore & Associates Inc.

The Salvador Dalí Museum is an American art museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, dedicated to the works of Salvador Dalí. Designed by Yann Weymouth, the museum is located on the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront by 5th Avenue Southeast, Bay Shore Drive, and Dan Wheldon Way.

## Description

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Interior view of entry atrium with spiral staircase

Reportedly costing over $30 million,[1] the surrealism-inspired museum structure[2] features a large glass entryway and skylight[3] made of 1.5-inch (38 mm) thick glass. Referred to as the "Enigma", the glass entryway is 75 feet (23 m) tall and encompasses a spiral staircase.[3] The remaining walls are composed of 18-inch (460 mm) thick concrete, designed to protect the collection from hurricanes which hit the region from time to time.[4]

The museum is a member of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM)[5] and of the North American Reciprocal Museums program.[6]

The museum features a variety of different events for families to attend. Some events include performances, workshops, films, lectures, different types of fundraising, and food and drink events. Many previous events have allowed members to participate in handmade holiday card workshops where participants created their very own holiday card including a Dalí theme. In addition, there has been weekly poetry performances and lectures such as coffee with a curator, a presentation on a theme-oriented topic that discusses a variety of topics in relation to Dalí.[7]

## History

[edit]

The old Salvador Dalí Museum facility in St Petersburg Salvador Dalí's signature as seen on the outside of the museum

Shortly before marrying in 1942, Reynolds and Eleanor Morse attended a Dalí retrospective at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Intrigued by the artist's subject matter, and impressed by his draftsmanship, they bought their first painting a year later. This purchase began a 40-year relationship as patrons and friends of Dalí that resulted in a comprehensive collection of original Dalí work.[8]

Until 1971, the Morses displayed their collection in their Cleveland, Ohio, home.

In March 1971, with Salvador Dalí presiding over the opening, the Morses opened a museum adjacent to their office building in Beachwood, Ohio.[9] By the end of the decade, with an overwhelming number of visitors, the Morses decided to again move their collection.

A Wall Street Journal article titled "U.S. Art World Dillydallies Over Dalí" caught the attention of the St. Petersburg, FL community, who rallied to bring the collection to the area.[10] A marine warehouse in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida was rehabilitated and the museum opened on March 7, 1982,[9] where it remained until 2010.

In mid-2008, a new location for the Dali museum was announced. A new building was designed by Yann Weymouth of the architectural firm HOK and built by The Beck Group[11] under the leadership of then-CEO Henry C. Beck III. Located on the downtown waterfront next to the Mahaffey Theater, on the former site of the Bayfront Center (an arena which had been demolished in 2004), the new, larger, and more storm-secure museum was opened on January 11, 2011.[12]

On April 18, 2012, the AIA's Florida Chapter placed the building on its list of Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places.[13]

## Artworks

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Side view of the Salvador Dalí Museum

The museum's collection includes 96 oil paintings, over 100 watercolors and drawings, 1,300 graphics, photographs, sculptures, and objets d'art, plus an extensive archival library.[14][15][16] In July 2020, the museum added a new exhibit called "At Home with Dali".[17] Permanent collection displays are periodically rotated, and several temporary shows are mounted each year.

The museum is home to more masterpieces of Dalí than any other museum in the world, including the large-scale paintings The Hallucinogenic Toreador, The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, The Ecumenical Council, Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man and The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory.

In addition to displaying the work of Dalí, the museum aims to educate the public and promote understanding, enjoyment, and scholarly examination of art through the exhibition of works by Dalí and artists of similar vision.[18]

With the exception of the Dalí Theater-Museum created by Dalí himself in his hometown of Figueres in Spain, the St. Petersburg Dalí Museum has the world's largest collections of Dalí's works.[19]

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the Salvador Dalí Museum made their gallery available for viewing online.[20]

* The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus

### Outreach and education

[edit]

The museum offers outreach and education opportunities to the local schools and community. In the 2021-2022 school year their art mobile visited 20 Pinellas schools, the summer program had 50 Title 1 students enrolled, and they sent volunteers to 31 local elementary schools for the Great American Teach In.[21] The museum is currently partnering with Dartmouth University on eye-tracking software that will compare the way a guest looks at a painting and the way the curator looks at the same painting.[21]

## Partnerships and publications

[edit]

The museum offers several of its own publications in its store, primarily guidebooks and books about exhibitions.[22] Avant-garde Studies is an annual online publication that covers talks and conferences presented at the museum, as well as peer-reviewed papers on avant-garde topics.[23] The museum runs the Dalí Summer Rec Center Program for children aged 7 to 12. Opera at The Dalí arranges opera singers to perform on the helical staircase in the museum.[24]

## Temporary exhibits

[edit]

Picasso and the Allure of the South was on display from January 22, 2022, until May 22, 2022, and explored the influence of Southern Europe on Pablo Picasso’s artwork over six decades of his career. The exhibit included 79 paintings, drawings, and collages, and was organized in collaboration with the Musée national Picasso-Paris.[25]

In 2023, the museum displayed a student surrealist exhibition, as it has each year since 1992 for students in Hillsborough County.[26]

There is an indefinite exhibit of augmented reality. The museum has placed Dali's largest works in the collection in an app. When standing in front of the paintings, visitors can open the app and use their phone camera to scan the painting and see parts of the work highlighted, watch them move, and learn more about the figures within the art.[27]

Another indefinite exhibit is the Dreams of Dali in Virtual Reality. Here participants put on VR headsets and step into some of Dali's work. Participants can walk around, through the desert, up the towers, and into hidden rooms within Dali's Archeological Reminiscences of Millet's "Angelus."[28]

## See also

[edit]

* Dalí Theatre and Museum – museum of Dalí in his home town of Figueres, Catalonia, Spain
* Gala Dali Castle Museum-House – in Púbol, Spain
* Dalí Paris – in Paris, France, museum of Dalí's drawings and sculptures
* Dalí – Die Ausstellung am Potsdamer Platz – in Berlin, Germany: more than 450 original artworks by Salvador Dalí
* List of single-artist museums

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Adam, Georgina (2011). "Spanish royal seal of approval for Dalí's Florida Home". Art Newspaper. 20 (221): 16.
2. ^ "Timeline". Salvador Dali Museum. Retrieved February 13, 2019.
3. ^ a b Post, Nadine M. (January 5, 2011). "Salvador Dalí Museum by HOK Opens This Month in Florida". Architectural record. Archived from the original on October 6, 2014. Retrieved October 7, 2014.
4. ^ De Monchaux, Thomas (March 2011). "Truly Surreal". Architect. 100 (3): 72, 74–5.
5. ^ "A Higher Standard: The Museum Accreditation Program" (PDF). aam-us.org. March 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 24, 2012. Retrieved September 4, 2016.
6. ^ "North American Reciprocal Museum (NARM) Program" (PDF). mintmuseum.org. June 15, 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 21, 2016. Retrieved September 4, 2016.
7. ^ "Archives".
8. ^ "An enduring friendship helped make the Salvador Dali Museum possible". Tampa Bay Times. Archived from the original on January 13, 2011. Retrieved September 5, 2016.
9. ^ a b Wach, Kenneth (1996). Salvador Dalí: masterpieces from the collection of the Salvador Dalí Museum. New York: Harry N. Abrams. pp. 6–7\. ISBN 0-8109-3235-0.
10. ^ "Mission & History". Salvador Dalí Museum. Retrieved April 26, 2023.
11. ^ "Salvador Dali Museum". The Beck Group. July 31, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2015.
12. ^ "The Building". Salvador Dalí Museum. Retrieved February 2, 2024.
13. ^ Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places
14. ^ "Permanent Collection Archives - Unparalleled collection of Salvador Dali art works". Unparalleled collection of Salvador Dali art works. Archived from the original on August 31, 2019. Retrieved October 27, 2016.
15. ^ "Museum Library". Salvador Dalí Museum. Archived from the original on August 31, 2019. Retrieved July 11, 2019.
16. ^ "The Dali Museum's newest exhibit brings Artificial Intelligence to the Burg". July 2019.
17. ^ "at home with dalí". thedali.org. The Salvador Dalí Museum. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
18. ^ "Dalí's Masterworks in Augmented Reality". Salvador Dalí Museum. Retrieved February 14, 2020.
19. ^ Remos, Ana B. (May 13, 2012). "Dali Museum: The Best Kept Secret in Florida". azureazure.com. Retrieved September 5, 2016.
20. ^ "Destination: The Dali". The Dali Museum. Hullfilm. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
21. ^ a b Impact-Report-2022-V6_Digital.pdf (thedali.org)
22. ^ "The Dalí Museum Store". Salvador Dalí Museum. Retrieved April 23, 2022.
23. ^ "Avant-garde Studies". Salvador Dalí Museum. Retrieved April 23, 2022.
24. ^ "Community Programs at The Dalí". Salvador Dalí Museum. Retrieved April 23, 2022.
25. ^ "Picasso and the Allure of the South". Salvador Dalí Museum. Retrieved April 23, 2022.
26. ^ "Current Exhibits Archives". Salvador Dalí Museum. Retrieved April 26, 2023.
27. ^ "Dalí's Masterworks in Augmented Reality". Salvador Dalí Museum. Retrieved April 26, 2023.
28. ^ "Dreams of Dalí in Virtual Reality". Salvador Dalí Museum. Retrieved April 26, 2023.

## External links

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Salvador Dalí Museum.

* Salvador Dalí Museum website
* "Dali Lives", Art Meets Artificial Intelligence at The Dali Museum

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Salvador Dalí

List of works

Paintings|

* List of works
* Landscape Near Figueras (1910)
* Vilabertran (1913)
* Cabaret Scene (1922)
* Portrait of My Father (1925)
* Young Woman at a Window (1925)
* The Basket of Bread (1926)
* Apparatus and Hand (1927)
* The Lugubrious Game (1929)
* The First Days of Spring (1929)
* The Accommodations of Desire (1929)
* The Great Masturbator (1929)
* The Invisible Man (1929–1932)
* The Persistence of Memory (1931)
* The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used as a Table (1934)
* Morphological Echo (1934–1936)
* A Chemist Lifting with Extreme Precaution the Cuticle of a Grand Piano (1936)
* Couple with Their Heads Full of Clouds (1936, 1937)
* Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936)
* The Burning Giraffe (1937)
* Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937)
* Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937)
* Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938)
* The Enigma of Hitler (1939)
* Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time (1939)
* The Face of War (1940)
* Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940)
* Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943)
* Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (1944)
* Basket of Bread (1945)
* The Apotheosis of Homer (1945)
* The Temptation of St. Anthony (1946)
* The Elephants (1948)
* Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio (1949)
* Leda Atomica (1949)
* The Madonna of Port Lligat (1949)
* Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951)
* Galatea of the Spheres (1952)
* The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1952–1954)
* The Colossus of Rhodes (1954)
* Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (1954)
* Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity (1954)
* The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955)
* Living Still Life (1956)
* The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1958–59)
* The Ecumenical Council (1959–60)
* Galacidalacidesoxyribonucleicacid (1963)
* La Gare de Perpignan (1965)
* Tuna Fishing (1966–67)
* The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1968–1970)
* La Toile Daligram (1972)
* Dalí Seen from the Back Painting Gala from the Back Eternalised by Six Virtual Corneas Provisionally Reflected by Six Real Mirrors (1972–1973)
* Lincoln in Dalivision (1977)
* The Swallow's Tail (1983)

Painting series|

* The Seven Lively Arts (1944; 1956)

Other artworks|

* Lobster Telephone (1936)
* Lobster dress (1937)
* Mae West Lips Sofa (1937)
* Champagne Standard Lamps (1938)
* Rainy Taxi (1938)
* A Logician Devil (1951)
* Nieuw Amsterdam (1974)
* Salvador Dali's Tarot (1985)

Writings|

* Giraffes on Horseback Salad (1937)
* The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942)
* Dali's Mustache (1954) (with Philippe Halsman)
* Être Dieu (1985)

Films|

* Un Chien Andalou (1929)
* L'Age d'Or (1930)
* Spellbound (1945, dream sequence)
* Destino (1946, completed 2003)

Set design
and costumes|

* Mariana Pineda (1927 production)

Museums|

* Dalí Theatre and Museum (Dalí Jewels)
* Gala Dalí Castle House-Museum
* Salvador Dalí House Museum
* Salvador Dalí Museum
* Dalí Paris
* Dalí Universe
* Morohashi Museum of Modern Art

Related|

* Gala Dalí (wife)
* Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation
* Paranoiac-critical method
* Salvador Dalí and dance
* Chupa Chups
* Dalí Atomicus (1948 photograph)
* Salvador Dalí (1966 film)
* The Death of Salvador Dali (2005 film)
* Little Ashes (2008 film)
* Midnight in Paris (2011 film)
* Dalíland (2022 film)
* Daaaaaalí! (2023 film)
* "Salvador Dalí" (song)
* 2919 Dali (asteroid)
* Dali crater
* Portlligat (village)
* Salvador Dalí Desert
* Dalí cross

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF

National|

* Germany
* United States
* France
* BnF data
* Czech Republic
* Israel
* Catalonia

Other|

* Yale LUX

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