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An important 'Gala' for the Dali Museum

By LENNIE BENNETT
Published March 6, 2005

	[Salvador Dali Museum]
	Salvador Dali, Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which At Twenty Meters Becomes a Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, 1976, oil on canvas.

ST. PETERSBURG - A monumental painting by Spanish artist Salvador Dali was unveiled Saturday at the annual gala dinner at the Salvador Dali Museum. Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which At Twenty Meters Becomes a Portrait of Abraham Lincoln is the museum's newest acquisition and adds another important late work to the collection, considered the most comprehensive in the world.

It employs Dali's famous double-image optical illusion, appearing at first to be a portrait of Gala, the artist's wife and muse. But step back (about 20 meters, as Dali suggests in the title) and it becomes the face of the Civil War president.

Finding the painting, then inking the deal to purchase it, took several years.

Painted in 1976 and first exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum that same year, it was purchased by an American collector. The painting was on loan to the Dali Museum from 1985 to 1987 but was then purchased by a Japanese collector and disappeared from view.

"We really didn't know where it was," museum director Hank Hine said. "It probably changed hands and was in a vault, listed on corporate books as an asset. It wasn't on display anywhere that we knew of."

Several years ago, the museum drafted a vision statement about what areas of the collection needed to be enhanced and made up a wish list.

"We don't have anything from the '70s on, and this painting was important as a late, large work," Hine said.

The problem was that important works by Dali rarely come on the market.

Carlo Bilotti, a museum trustee, made the search into a personal cause.

"He found that a Japanese institution owned a Dali painting, and it was one of the ones on our list," said Hine. "Then he used his circle of contacts to find out where it was. From there we started negotiations."

A speedy resolution was important. Once word gets out that a painting is on the market, bidding wars can start, and museums with limited funds are often outpriced by aggressive individual collectors.

"Carlo has a very sophisticated sense of how the world of fine art works, especially at the museum level. He managed the negotiations. He was pivotal," Hine said.

"The other trustees supported me in every step," said Bilotti. "They were very generous."

The ending was happy for the Dali Museum, which took possession of the painting recently. It goes on view to the public beginning today.

Hine declines to give the purchase price but said important works by Dali have been selling at auction from between $4-million and $6-million. Lead gifts came from board president Tom James and his wife, Mary, and Bill and Hazel Hough in memory of trustee Jack Painter, who died in 2004.

[Last modified March 3, 2005, 10:57:04]