PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Peter Tush has been part of the Dali Museum for decades.
As the museum’s curator, he and his team have mounted a show in honor of the United States of America’s 250th birthday, called “Dali in America.”
“And we realized we had so much material in our collection that documents this extraordinary story,” said Tush.
The story of “Dali in America” begins on his first trip to the States in 1934 with his wife, Gala.
Dali was all over the American airwaves, from evening talk shows to game shows to movies.
The exhibition also covers Dali’s design work and his insistence on artistic freedom.
After Dali created a pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, organizers baulked at his inverted mermaid, a fish-faced version of Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.”
“Dali went into a rage. He immediately distanced himself from the pavilion,” said Tush.
He then went on to create the “Declaration of Independence of the Imagination and the Rights of Man to His Own Madness.”
“From 1934 until almost the end of Dali’s life, that America was the platform that created the artist that we associate with Salvador Dali,” Tush said.
“Dali in America” is a match made in art and culture heaven.
The exhibition will be on display until mid-October.
And the museum is located along the downtown St. Pete waterfront.