Florida 2 – St-Petersburg

 Visited the Dalí Museum – this is apparently the largest collection of Dalí’s works, outside Europe (to be more specific, with the exception of the Teatro-Museo Dalí created by Dalí himself in his home town of Figueres in Catalonia, this museum has the world's largest collection of Dalí's works – we have seen some at the Reina-Sophia in Madrid a few years ago).  First question that comes to mind: why in the USA? Why in Florida, St-Petersburg? First because those who started the collection are Americans, Mr. and Mrs. Morse, who started collecting Dalí’s works in the 40’s (they got to know the artist well, as Dalí and his wife spent the War years in the States, right up to 1948), and exposed them “en masse”, in their home and then in a makeshift museum in Cleveland, Ohio, until they decided 30 or 40 years later to bequeath them – but to whom? (There is an article, published in the Wall Street Journal in the seventies headlined “U.S. Art World Dilly-Dallies over Dali”, detailing how the couple was having trouble finding a home for their collection, one of the greatest selections of Dalí’s works in the world.)

That is where St-Petersburg (“St-Pete” as it is referred to around here) comes in. A local lawyer, James W. Martin, apparently heard about the Morses’ plight, approached them and convinced the town to offer a home to the collection; that was in 1982, when a museum featuring Dalí’s works opened in St- Pete, in a marine warehouse. However the story did not stop there, for the city eventually built a wonderful “home” for the now expanded collection at the extreme end of the city, on what looks like reclaimed land (on the Bay of Tampa), which opened just over 2 years ago. It was built with private’ and public’s (every level of government) money, costing some $36M.

courtoisie of TheCoolist

The museum is spectacular! The collection, of course, is first rate: close to 100 paintings, plus over 100 watercolors and drawings, 1,300 graphics, photographs, sculptures and objets d'art, and an extensive archival library. Among the paintings, there are some of the most famous (where they acquired by the Morses or later by the Museum? Dalí painted until the late 70’s, almost until his muse and Russian wife, Dala – more on her later – died in ’82, at the home he had made for her, Publos, at Port LLigat, in Spain; he himself died later on that decade – in ’89 – back where he was born (1904), in Cadaquès, near Barcelona). The museum is home to 7 of the 18 masterwork paintings by Dalí (including The Hallucinogenic Toreador and The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus). (I understand that, to be considered a masterwork, a painting must be at least 5 feet in any direction and have been worked on for over a year.) My personal favorite in the Museum is the Apparatus and Hand painting, going back to 1927 and which probably inaugurated his surrealist period (and the strong influence of Freud's thinking about dreams!)

The painting collection covers well all the several “stages” of Dalí’s works: from the ‘early years’ and his paintings in Cadaqués, where he spent the summers, to the surrealist period (for which he is better known – the melting watches) to when, in 1950, he declared himself a “nuclear mystic”! (Hard though to classify his work in periods as, beyond his early years, he switched back and forth in style – best to remember him simply as a totally extravagant artist!)

"Apparatus and Hand", courtoisie of sydneymegan

The Museum has also amassed works of literature and other media. Dali dabbled in every possible art form – literature of course, but also sculpture, film, jewelry, fashion, set designs, holography, even advertising! Dali was an avid writer all his life – for instance his outrageous (some would say, ‘creative’) autobiography, the Secret Life of Salvador Dali, published in 1941…and denounced by his sister’s Salvador Dali As Seen by His Sister in 1950. He also did sculpture (the ‘Venus de Milo with Drawers’, a bronze he did during his surrealist period, in 1936…and painted in white, with ermine pompons in 1964!). While in the US, he worked with Hitchcock (the dream scene in Spellbound, a film with Gregory Peck in 1945, is his), and Disney (on a film, Destino, started in 1946 but only completed in 2003 by Roy Disney!), keeping in mind that he had done Le Chien Andalou with Luis Bunuel in 1929!

It was a discovery for me to find out that Dalí had married Gala, the former wife of Paul Éluard, the French surrealist poet. Dalí and Gala married in a civil ceremony in 1934, after having lived together since 1929, (and remarried in a Catholic ceremony, once a dispensation from the Pope had been granted, in 1958 in Montrejic). Nevertheless, even after the breakup of their marriage, Éluard and Gala (they had met and married very, very young!) continued to be close. She was Dalí's muse…as she had been (and will be!) to Éluard and other members of the surrealist group, including Louis Aragon, Max Ernst (with whom Gala and Éluard had a ménage-à-trois going for a few years just before she met Dalí!) and André Breton, and much later on to rock singer Jeff Fenholt (whom she purportedly lavished with gifts, including Dali's paintings and a million dollar home on Long Island). She was about 10 years older than Dalí, and said to have had a very strong sex drive (that would explain the numerous extramarital affairs she had throughout her life, including with her former husband!)  Dali and Gala!

 And the Museum building itself! Quite phenomenal! Built to resist hurricanes (according to architect Yann Weymouth’s plans, of the firm HOK, helped by architects Tim Clemoons, and Peter Arendt who coordinated the construction), it features some kind of a geodesic glass dome, adjunct to it, and giving quite a vista on the bay, and the gardens. The atrium features a spiral staircase, the height of the building, given access to the exhibits floor, under the glass geodesic roof – and an immensely blue sky that day! Quite fitting for the eccentric that Dalí was!

 (Note to myself – when planning to visit a museum in North America, check first if a reciprocal arrangement exists with the AGO or the ROM in Toronto: there was one for the Dalí Museum, which we did not take advantage of!)

Had dinner with André and Sylvia at the Café Rosa, near the St-Pete beach, which we had walked before in the afternoon (and where we had a drink, at the pinkish Don Cesar hotel – reminiscent of the pink Palace in Hawaii…)

St-Petersburg, April 9, 2013