Salvador Dali Museum

The Dalí Museum [note 1] in St. Petersburg (Florida, USA) houses the largest collection located outside Europe of the works of the artist Salvador Dalí. The collection includes works of comprehensive 2140 96 oil paintings, over 100 watercolors and drawings, 1300 prints, photographs, sculptures and other art objects.

History

Shortly after their wedding on March 21, 1942 bought Eleanor Reese Morse and Albert Reynolds Morse [note 2], an industrialist couple from Cleveland, Ohio, their first Dalí painting. They had seen works by the artist at an exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art and loved it. In April 1943, she met Dalí and his wife Gala in New New York, which was the beginning of decades of close friendship.

Over the years, the Morse acquired more works of Dalí, until finally the collection was too big for her house. Therefore, they chose to build a museum next to the administration building its factory in Cleveland, which was opened in 1971 by Dalí himself. But even this proved after a few years because of the number of visitors to be too small, and so the Morse began a nationwide search for a new permanent home for the artworks.

Some museums showed interest, but could not provide optimum conditions for the presentation of the collection. Thanks to private initiative was in St. Petersburg with municipal and state support a new museum founded, which took over the works, and in March 1982 in a converted former warehouse ( Lage27.760277777778 - 82.636666666667 ) at Bayboro Harbor was opened.

In January 2011, the museum moved to about 800 m northeast of the previous site in a new building. It was built according to the plans of the architectural firm HOK, the construction period was 22 months.