By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian Size matters. I’ve always thought it important that, when a painting, print, drawing, watercolor, or sculpture by Salvador Dalí is reproduced in books and catalogs, the dimensions of the work should be noted. A sense of scale should be conveyed. This isn’t done often enough. And I think…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian I so want to get a jump on spring! Can you blame me; it’s late January, and I’m based in Buffalo, New York. So the title of Salvador Dalí’s 1929 surrealist painting, “The First Days of Spring,” strikes a welcome chord with me and hopefully with readers of…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian The popular television game show, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” recently had a connection with none other than Salvador Dalí. The German version of the show not long ago posed the question, “Whose body was exhumed last summer for a paternity test?” I don’t know if the contestant…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian A European friend of mine who’s almost obsessive about posting photographs on Facebook that pertain to Cadaques, Spain, recently posted this photo of a plate of grilled sardines. While anything served to me with a face turns my stomach, the fish in a dish immediately called to mind…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian I’m in the mood to show a side of Salvador Dalí best told through photographs. Today I want to talk briefly about how Dalí worked. And rather than showcasing his works themselves, most of the photos punctuating today’s post show Dalí at work. I had the momentary…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian I’m not sure very many people – even card-carrying Dalí aficionados – are aware that the Vatican in Rome has a Salvador Dalí painting in its permanent art collection. Actually, it owns a trinity of Dalí’s, each with varying degrees of religious imagery. While much of Dalí’s…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian Next month, something rather exceptional will be occurring in the endlessly exciting world of Salvador Dalí. What many, including me, consider Dalí’s most famous religious painting – in fact, what might be the most famous religious painting of the last century – is coming to the Dalí Museum…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian What inspired Dalí? Answer: all kinds of things. Anything. EVERYTHING! The man possessed limitless curiosity. He could get excitedly creative over things you or I wouldn’t have given even a fleeting thought to. Or over something monumental, to which he would lend a special twist, making…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian For the real Dalí enthusiast, it’s always enlightening to discover new things about the artist, how he worked, what inspired him. I think I’ve found an influence that is not commonly cited for comparison when it comes to Salvador Dalí’s first Nuclear-Mystical masterwork – the large and…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian I think it’s fitting to ring in the New Year by re-visiting where it really all began for Salvador Dalí in terms of the single painting that propelled him to ultimate fame. The one that will always remain his best-known work: “The Persistence of Memory” of 1931. …