The Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí in Figueres, Spain is a private cultural institution that was established in December 1983 at the express wish of Salvador Dalí himself.

The Fundació manages the four Dalí museums located in and near the artist’s hometown of Figueres:

o the Dalí Theatre-Museum, Figueres;
o the Dalí-Jewels Museum, Figueres;
o the House-Museum Salvador-Dalí, Portlligat;
o and the House-Museum Gala Dalí Castle, Pubol.

The Fundació is the custodian of the world’s largest repository of Salvador Dalí artworks and documentation. This comprises some 4,000 works of art in all media - paintings, drawings, sculptures, engravings, installations, jewellery, holograms, photography and tens of thousands of archival manuscripts, photographs and documents. The latter are housed in the Centre for Dalinian Studies in Figueres, while a large proportion of the art is on permanent display in the Dalí Theatre-Museum, Figueres.

The Dalí-Theatre Museum was constructed from amidst the ruins of the Municipal Theatre in Figueres, which had been largely destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. Dalí announced his intention to dedicate a museum in his hometown in 1971 and four years later, in September 1974, Dalí himself presided over the opening of his Teatre-Museu Dalí.

The Salvador Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, Florida was founded by Eleanor and Reynolds Morse, passionate Dalí collectors and long friends of the artist.

The Morses first met Dalí and his wife Gala in December 1942; and in March 1943 they purchased their first Dalí painting, Daddy Longlegs of the Evening, from the artist’s one-man exhibition at the Bignou Gallery in New York. This started a lifelong passion for the art of Salvador Dali, which saw the Morses eventually acquire some 96 Dalí oils, more than 100 watercolours and drawings, and over 1,300 graphics, sculptures, objects d'art, and photographs during the course of their forty-year friendship with the artist.

When the Morses’ collection outgrew their ability to display it comprehensively in their home in Cleveland, Ohio, the couple opened the world’s first Salvador Dalí Museum in Beachwood, Ohio, in 1971.

In 1982 the collection moved to Florida, where the Morses inaugurated a much enlarged Salvador Dalí Museum, in St Petersburg, near Tampa. Expanded twice more, in 1989 and 1995, the Salvador Dalí Museum has attracted millions of visitors to St Petersburg.

 

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