Art by Dali, one of the most popular and outrageous artists of the
century, will be at the Warhol this summer.
Salvador Dali
June 20 to September 6
The Andy Warhol Museum
Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali both have museums named after them —
an amazing feat in the world of art. Dali (1904-1989) belonged to the generation
of artists before Warhol, but in the 1960s he became part of the pop art
scene, and an acquaintance of Warhols.
It is very appropriate that these two great single-artist museums —
The Andy Warhol Museum and the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg,
Florida — should loan some of their treasures to each other for exhibition.
The Warhol will have 20 works from the Dali Museum on display during the
same period that some of Warhols works are on display at the Dali Museum.
Some said Warhol patterned his own passage to fame after Dalis. Despite
the artistic differences between Dalis surrealism and Warhols pop art,
they shared many qualities as successful artists. Both worked hard, were
very creative, and explored many different media, including film. They
were productive during long careers. Each achieved fame early, and built
on that to become celebrities. In his later period, Dali, like Warhol,
explored religious themes.
Like Warhol, Dali had his entourage of devotees. In the 1960s one of
them left him to join Andy Warhols crowd of followers, and renamed herself
“Ultra Violet.” Warhol once published a few of his thoughts about Dali
and his wife and model, Gala:
“Im never sure whether Dali copied transvestites from me or I copied them
from Dali. Gala is always the last one to arrive at dinner. She makes a
dramatic entrance on the arm of a teenage boy with long blond hair who
played the lead in Jesus Christ Superstar somewhere, once. Gala is not
too tall, but she walks erectly — shes the only person I know besides
Ethel Merman who absolutely refuses to let me take her picture, let alone
tape-record her. When Gala enters the room, Dali stands up, snaps his fingers,
calls for silence and announces, Gala! Y Jesucristu Superstar. Everybody
claps. Its like being with royalty or circus people. Thats why I like
being with Dali — because its not like being with an artist, he wouldnt
be caught dead in a loft.”
— from Andy Warhols Exposures, 1979
The Dali Museum, like the Warhol, is based on the greatest collection
of the artists work. Eleanor and A. Reynold Morse of Cleveland began collecting
Dali works in the 1940s and through the decades assembled works representing
his entire artistic career. When in the 1970s the Morses began a
nationwide search for a large permanent and public home for their collection
they decided on St. Petersburg, Florida — a city which campaigned hard
for the museum. St. Petersburg offered strong government and private support,
and also a large unused maritime building which was adapted to be a museum.
The Andy Warhol Museum, of course, is the largest single-artist museum
in the world, and was created from the greatest collection of Warhols
work, made available after the artists death by the Dia Center for the
Arts and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. It too is housed
in a downtown industrial building turned into a museum, and is a key tourist
attraction for the city, with a wide array of public programs.
Products from the Dali Museum will be sold at the Warhol store.
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