By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian It’s Gala’s turn. At least that’s how most are viewing the newly opened Gala Salvador Dalí exhibition at the National Art Museum of Catalonia in Barcelona, which runs through the rest of the summer and into the fall until the 14th of October. After all, the show…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian Are there some paintings by Dalí – or prints, drawings, or sculptures for that matter – that just keep speaking to you? Calling your name? Inserting themselves in your mind’s eyes? And are you sometimes puzzled by just what it is about a particular Dalí work that…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian BREAKING NEWS (St. Petersburg, Florida)… What meteorologists are calling a freak hurricane, packing far more punch than would be expected this time of year, has destroyed virtually all of the permanent collection of priceless art in the Salvador Dalí Museum here, sources say. Major paintings by the…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian Salvador Dalí, one of history’s great writers. What? Writer? I thought Dalí was an artist? You know, the Spanish surrealist who was a press agent’s dream, with his penchant for publicity and ability to make headlines with every twitch of his mustache. All true. But Salvador…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian Can you name one of the most important keys to Salvador Dalí’s genius? Something the average Dalí aficionado probably doesn’t know about? Something intangible yet widely considered among scholars to be of enormous consequence in the ability of Salvador Dalí to create so many extraordinary paintings, prints, drawings…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian My friend, Elliott King, Ph.D., a Dalí expert, professor, author, and exhibition curator, summed it up nicely: “Dalí was sort of a star’s star.” So true. Which is why this post focuses on Dalí and celebrity – his, and those celebs with whom he had some connection….
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian I’m returning today to Salvador Dalí’s monumental masterpiece, Christ of St. John of the Cross, upon news of its long-awaited return home. Scotland’s favorite work of art had been away from the Kelvingrove Art Museum in Glasgow for months – first on loan to the Royal Academy of…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian With summer just seven days away, let’s embrace a lovely little motif that Salvador Dalí employed in a number of his works – whether oil paintings, prints, watercolors, even three-dimensional items. I’m talking about his double-image of birds in a sunny sky that collectively form a human…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian Would the Louvre be quite the same without Leonardo’s Mona Lisa? Would New York’s Museum of Modern Art be the same without Dalí’s Persistence of Memory? A recent news report about The Persistence of Memory being on loan to an art exhibition in Australia brought back a…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian In the book, Salvador Dalí, by Robert and Nicholas Descharnes (Edita – Lausanne, 1993), Dalí is quoted thusly: “At the age of 25 I wanted to become the world’s most sensational painter, and I did.” It’s interesting that Dalí didn’t say he wanted to become the world’s…