By Paul Chimera Salvador Dali Historian   One of the most surprisingly simple and tranquil paintings by Salvador Dali – while at the same time one that’s puzzled and confounded many Dali enthusiasts – is his interesting little oil on canvas, “Original Sin,” painted in 1941. Copyright Gala-Dali Foundation   The work is technically brilliant, really showing off Salvador Dali’s consummate draftsmanship. Look at the way he handled the veins in the woman’s foot. And

By Paul Chimera Salvador Dali Historian   One of the most exciting things for me in this lifelong Dali adventure is encountering never-before or seldom seen works by the Surrealist master. It’s almost like the sublime feeling a scientist must get when the archaeological dig he or she is on suddenly turns up an ancient artifact of startling significance.   Today I’m focusing on an early Salvador Dali painting that was reproduced only in black

By Paul Chimera Salvador Dali Historian   Salvador Dali called Pablo Picasso his “artistic father,” and the elder Spaniard’s influence on some of Dali’s early work is undeniable – such as in the subject of today’s blog post: the small, approx. 8 inch by 11 inch “Figures Lying on the Sand” of 1926.     Not only did Picasso paint “The Bathers” and several similar works that invite comparison to the Dali painting, but clearly

By Paul Chimera Salvador Dali Historian   In the early 1970s, just when I thought Salvador Dali couldn’t top the amazing works he was creating at the easel, along came an article in TIME magazine that literally knocked me on my gluteus maximus.   I was introduced to an utterly new phenomenon – holography – and how Salvador Dali was the first major artist to leverage this breakthrough technology for fine art purposes.   Accompanying

By Paul Chimera Salvador Dali Historian   Salvador Dali’s unpredictability was an undeniable part of his appeal.   What would the “divine Dali” do next, we often wondered? What astonishment would emerge from his easel? What controversial new work was going to make worldwide headlines tomorrow? How would he shock us today?   So it must have come as a surprise to much of the art world when the splendid “Gala Nude, Seen From Behind”

By Paul Chimera Salvador Dali Historian   When Salvador Dali got an idea in his head, he was often obsessive about it – obsessive to the point of a kind of mania. This passion for what he found indispensable in carrying out his quest to be the best artist of his time was evidenced in, among other things, his focus on rhinoceros horns.   “I see rhinoceros!” became an iconic line in the 2011 Woody

By Paul Chimera Salvador Dali Historian   Sometimes the myriad ideas that must have been colliding constantly in Salvador Dali’s mind at any given time found an echo in certain of his paintings that featured a disparate and dizzying array of thoughts, reflections, obsessions, and fetishes.   And while the titles of many Dali paintings were almost annoyingly inscrutable, others pointed unambiguously to what was in store for us. This latter case is well exemplified

By Paul Chimera Salvador Dali Historian   Today’s generously illustrated blog post is gigantic. I mean literally huge, because I want to talk about Dali paintings in which a towering presence looms large. There are lots of them.   Why is this important?   Well, Salvador Dali was a master on many levels. One of them was his uncanny use of space and perspective to evoke different perceptions of space and time. Sometimes simply the sheer

By Paul Chimera Salvador Dali Historian One of Salvador Dali’s largest and most complex paintings also boasts one of his most verbose titles: “Salvador Dali in the Act of Painting Gala in the Apotheosis of the Dollar in Which You Can See on the Left Marcel Duchamp Masquerading as Louis XIV behind a Vermeerian Curtain Which Actually Is the Invisible but Monumental Face of ‘Hermes’ by Praxiteles.”   Phew…time to come up for air!  

By Paul Chimera Salvador Dali Historian   Shades of summer are fast descending. Reminding us that fall is about to ascend, and many of the things we associate with summer will be absent from our view as the change of seasons inexorably unfolds. It reminds me of a glorious emblem of summer while a sliver of the season’s light and warmth still remains: the remarkable sunflower. Of course, to the Dalinian mind, the mention of