Salvador Dalí Museum facts for kids
The Salvador Dalí Museum features a spherical atrium at the entrance (2011).
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| Established | 1982 |
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| Location | St. Petersburg, Florida, US |
| Type | Art museum |
| Accreditation | AAM |
| Architect | HOK |
| Structural engineer | Walter P. Moore & Associates Inc. |
The Salvador Dalí Museum is an art museum located in St. Petersburg, Florida, in the United States. It is dedicated to showing the amazing artworks of Salvador Dalí, a famous artist. The museum building was designed by Yann Weymouth. You can find it on the waterfront in downtown St. Petersburg.
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What Makes the Museum Special?
This museum cost over $30 million to build. It looks like something out of a dream, just like Dalí's art! The entrance has a huge glass area and a skylight. This glass is very thick, about 1.5 inches.
This glass entrance is called the "Enigma." It is about 75 feet tall and has a cool spiral staircase inside. The rest of the museum walls are super strong, about 18 inches thick concrete. This helps protect the art from hurricanes that sometimes hit Florida.
The museum is part of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). This means it meets high standards for museums. It also offers many fun events for families. These include workshops, performances, and even talks. For example, they have had workshops where you can make holiday cards with a Dalí theme. They also have "Coffee with a Curator," where you can learn about Dalí's art while having coffee.
How the Museum Started
The story of the museum began with a couple named Reynolds and Eleanor Morse. In 1942, they saw an exhibit of Dalí's art. They loved his unique style and bought their first painting a year later. This was the start of a 40-year friendship with Dalí. They collected many of his original artworks.
At first, the Morses kept their collection in their home in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1971, they opened a small museum next to their office in Beachwood, Ohio. Salvador Dalí himself was there for the opening!
Many people came to see the art. So, the Morses decided to move their collection again. A newspaper article about the collection caught the eye of people in St. Petersburg, Florida. They worked hard to bring the art to their city.
In 1982, the museum opened in a renovated warehouse in downtown St. Petersburg. It stayed there until 2010.
The New Building
In 2008, plans for a new museum building were announced. Yann Weymouth from the company HOK designed it. The new building opened on January 11, 2011. It is located on the downtown waterfront, where the Bayfront Center used to be. This new museum is bigger and much safer from storms.
In 2012, the new building was recognized by the AIA's Florida Chapter. They put it on their list of "Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places."
Amazing Artworks
The museum has a huge collection of Dalí's work. It includes 96 oil paintings, over 100 watercolors and drawings, and 1,300 prints. There are also photos, sculptures, and other art objects. The museum often changes which artworks are on display. They also have special temporary exhibits each year.
This museum has more of Dalí's "masterpiece" paintings than any other museum in the world. Some of these huge paintings include The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, The Ecumenical Council, Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man, and The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory.
The museum wants to help people understand and enjoy art. They do this by showing Dalí's works and art by other similar artists. The St. Petersburg Dalí Museum has the largest collection of Dalí's art outside of the Dalí Theater-Museum in Spain. Dalí himself created that museum in his hometown of Figueres.
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the museum even let people view their art online!
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The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus
Learning and Outreach
The museum works with local schools and the community to offer learning programs. For example, their "art mobile" visited many schools. They also had a summer program for students. The museum is even working with Dartmouth University on a special eye-tracking software. This software will compare how visitors and art experts look at paintings.
Books and Programs
The museum shop sells guidebooks and books about its exhibits. They also have an online publication called Avant-garde Studies. This publication shares talks and research about modern art.
The museum runs the Dalí Summer Rec Center Program for children aged 7 to 12. They also have "Opera at The Dalí," where opera singers perform on the spiral staircase!
Special Exhibits
The museum often hosts temporary exhibits. For example, "Picasso and the Allure of the South" was on display in 2022. This exhibit showed how Southern Europe influenced Pablo Picasso's art. It included 79 paintings and drawings.
Since 1992, the museum has also shown a student surrealist exhibition each year. This features art by students from Hillsborough County.
Digital Experiences
The museum has some cool ongoing exhibits that use technology. One is an augmented reality exhibit. You can use an app on your phone to scan Dalí's largest paintings. The app then highlights parts of the art, makes them move, and tells you more about the figures in the painting.
Another amazing exhibit is "Dreams of Dali in Virtual Reality." Here, you put on VR headsets. You can then step inside some of Dalí's art! You can walk around a desert, climb towers, and find hidden rooms within Dalí's painting Archeological Reminiscences of Millet's "Angelus."
See also
In Spanish: Salvador Dalí Museum para niños
- Dalí Theatre and Museum – a museum of Dalí's art in his hometown in Spain
- Gala Dali Castle Museum-House – a museum in Spain
- Espace Dalí – a museum in Paris, France, showing Dalí's drawings and sculptures
- Dalí – Die Ausstellung am Potsdamer Platz – a museum in Berlin, Germany, with over 450 original Dalí artworks
- List of single-artist museums
