Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SURREAL SALVADOR
Salvador Dalí i Domènech
(1904-89) was born in Figueres - you can see the exterior of
his
birthplace
at c/Monturiol 6 (there's a plaque) and that of the next house in which the
Dalí family lived (at no. 10). He gave his first exhibition in the town when he was just 14
and, after a stint at the Royal Academy of Art in Madrid (he was expelled), he made his
way to Paris, where he established himself at the forefront of the Surrealist movement. A
celebrity artist in the US in the 1940s and 1950s, he returned eventually to Europe where,
among other projects, he set about reconstructing Figueres' old municipal theatre, where
he had held his first boyhood exhibition. This opened as the Museu Dalí in 1974, which
Dalí then fashioned into an inspired repository for some of his most bizarre works.
By 1980, Dalí was growing increasingly frail, particularly after he suffered severe burns
in a fire in 1984 (following which he moved into the
Torre Galatea
, the tower adjacent
to the museum), and controversy surrounded the artist's final years. Spanish government
officials and friends feared that he was manipulated in his senile condition. In particular,
it's alleged that he was made to sign blank canvases - and this has inevitably led to the
questioning oftheauthenticity ofsomeofhislater works.Dalí diedinFigueres onJanuary
23, 1989. His body now lies behind a simple granite slab inside the museum.
Museu Dalí
Pl. Gala i Salvador Dalí • July-Sept daily 9am-7.15pm, Aug also daily 10pm-12.30am; Oct Tues-Sun
9.30am-5.15pm; Nov-Feb Tues-Sun 10.30am-5.15pm; March-June daily 9.30am-6pm • €12, under-9s free •
972 677 500,
salvador-dali.org
The
Museu Dalí
appeals to everyone's innate love of fantasy, absurdity and participation.
The museum is not a collection of Dalí's greatest hits - those are scattered far and wide - but
what you do get beggars description and is not to be missed.
The building (a former theatre) is an exhibit in itself, topped by a huge metallic dome and
decorated with a line of luminous egg shapes.
Outlandish sculptures
and statues adorn the
square and facade and it gets even crazier inside, where the walls of the circular courtyard
are ringed by stylized mannequins preparing to dive from the heights - below sits the fam-
ous
RainyCadillac
,whereyoucanwaterthesnail-encrusted occupantsofasteamyCadillac
by feeding it with coins. In the
Mae West Room
an unnerving portrait of the actress is re-
vealed by peering through a mirror at giant nostrils, red lips and hanging tresses, while else-
where there's a complete life-sized orchestra, some of Dalí's extraordinary furniture (like the
fish-tail bed) and ranks of
Surrealistpaintings
- including one room dominated by the ceil-
ing fresco of the huge feet of Dalí and Gala (his Russian wife and muse). The museum also
contains many of Dalí's
collected works
by other artists, from Catalan contemporaries to El
Greco, and there are temporary exhibitions, too, while your ticket also allows admission to
