Dali Museum

 

The Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, is an impressive concrete and glass structure.  It holds many works by noted Spanish artist Salvator Dali.  While he is best known as a surrealist, with images like melting clocks, the museum shows other dimensions of Dali through his earlier works and later works.

Dali painted his sister often.  The face at the top was painted in 1923 in a neo-classical style.  A few years later, he met Picasso and revised the painting in a cubist style. 

This is Dali's 1938 surrealist work Venus de Milo with Drawers (and Pompoms).  He cut six drawers into her body and converted the statue into a piece of furniture.  Three ermine pompoms accentuate Venus' breasts and belly.

Dali's wife, Gala, was a frequent model.  She is at the left of this painting, Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire.  Gala appears to be looking at a bust of Voltaire, but it melts into a group of figures as she looks. Voltaire's eyes become a couple dressed in 17th century clothing.

This remarkable painting is Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln - Homage to Rothko (Second Version).  Seen up close, we see a nude Gala looking out into the Mediterranean.  Stepping back 20 meters -- where this photo was taken -- and instead we see the face of Abraham Lincoln.

After 1940, Dali turned away from surrealism.  He painted some huge canvasses like this, which reflect both religion and science, something he called "Nuclear Mysticism."  This 13.5 foot painting is The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.  

I was lucky to be there for a new exhibition that paired some Dali works with works by Alberto Giacometti, the Italian surrealist sculptor.

I enjoyed seeing some Modigliani works, but frankly I couldn't see any connections between his and Dali's despite the shared "surrealism" label.