THE DALI MUSEUM
FIGUERES, SPAIN
IMAGE NUMBER 742
The Dalí Theatre and Museum is a museum of the artist Salvador Dalí in his home town of Figueres, in Catalonia, Spain. The heart of the museum is the town's theatre that Dalí knew as a child. It was where one of the first public exhibitions of young Dalí's art was shown. In 1960, Dalí and the mayor of Figueres decided to rebuild it as a museum dedicated to the town's most famous son. The museum now includes buildings and courtyards adjacent to the old theatre.
The museum displays the single largest and most diverse collection of works by Salvador Dalí, the core of which was from the artist's personal collection. A glass geodesic dome cupola crowns the stage of the old theatre, and Dalí is buried in a crypt below the stage floor. The space formerly occupied by the audience has been transformed into a courtyard open to the sky, with Dionysian nude figurines standing in the old balcony windows. A Dalí installation inside a full-sized automobile, inspired by Rainy Taxi (1938), is parked near the centre of the space.
Next to the museum is the 14th Century church of Sant Pere, where Dali was baptised. Over the door which depicts St Peter with his net, there appears to be some embellishment by Dali.
TECHNICAL NOTES
The image was taken with a tripod-mounted Phase One 645 Camera at ISO 35. Exposure of 1/200th of a second and an aperture of f6.3. 45 mm Phase One wide angle lens with focal plane shutter. The image was captured on a Phase One IQ180 80 megapixel digital back.