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…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian Like the weather, Dalí is hot, hot, hot! Have you noticed how Salvador Dalí is turning up just about everywhere these days? There’s a major feature biopic in production now about the Master, titled DalíLand, with Ben Kingsley playing Dalí in his later years, along with Leslie…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian The French term “plein air” means open air, and refers to the process of creating a work of art outdoors. Salvador Dalí loved the outdoors – most especially at his villa in Port Lligat, Spain, but even during the cold season, when he and Gala spent several decades…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian Dalí the influencer…where to begin? Salvador Dalí has influenced, well, just about everything. There are so many areas of culture and society on which his extraordinary creativity has left its mark. It’s dizzying. One of today’s pop culture icons – the often unpredictable and flamboyant singer/musician Lady…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian So many of Salvador Dalí works truly leaves us in awe. The term “awesome” is way overused today. It’s become a tired cliché. Being in awe of something is to truly be transfixed and transformed by it. And that’s a rare occurrence. But it happens with astonishing…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian Salvador Dalí was a master watercolorist. It’s a medium often overlooked when we consider Dalí’s genius as a painter. Oils…drawings…prints…sculpture, sure. But watercolors? I have a strong sense that few of us think of these washy works on paper when we consider the main man of surrealism. Yet…