As a life long fan and collector of Salvador Dali it is exciting to see that his art is more popular than ever.

The celebration of the opening of the new Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida was a thrilling, weeklong affair from January 11 to January 18. It included celebrities such as Susan Sarandon, Spanish royalty and a surreal parade from the old building to the new and numerous parties.  It has been 29 years since I  welcomed the original museum to St. Pete in 1982 and met Eleanor and A. Reynolds Morse for the first time.

The new location on Tampa Bay is visually awesome and structurally sound  enough to withstand a category 5 hurricane.  The substantially larger building can show all 96 paintings in the collection and a large portion of the watercolors, sculpture, drawings and graphics. The museum, an homage to Dali’s style, is fantastic.  The building is a concrete trapezoid wrapped in an undulating wave of glass and steel. Yann Weymouth, the architect was, in part, inspired by the Dali Teatro-Museo in Figueres, Spain, which is topped by Buckminster Fuller geodesic domes. In St. Petersburg there is a curving dome which Weymouth calls the “Glass Enigma”.It is composed of 1,062 glass triangles, no two of which are identical. Inside, the soaring spiral staircase of solid concrete is a nod to Dali’s fascination with the double- helical structure of DNA.

The collection in St. Pete was donated by the Morses who accumulated an astounding amount of art from Dali in the course of their 45 year relationship with him.  The Florida museum rivals the original Dali Museum in Figueres, Spain in every way.
Brenda and I enjoyed the Opening events as well as the Closing fantastical party entitled “Suenos de Dali”, which was a whimsical, surreal affair. I’ve included some photos of the events and the museum.