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A guest at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center’s opening reception for an exhibit of Salvador Dali’s takes a photo of Dalí’s sculpture “Woman Aflame” in Fullerton on Thursday, April 25, 2024. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)
About a year ago, Annabella Pritchard, a local art curator, was chatting with a good friend, an learned about a recently acquired, unique collection of Salvador Dali’s artwork.
The owner of the collection, financier Benjamin Feldman, the friend told Pritchard, was interested in sharing the art with a nonprofit and preferably showing it as its own exhibition.
“And immediately I thought of the Muckenthaler (Cultural Center), Pritchard said. “I adore this place. I adore everyone here.”
Pritchard reached out to Muckenthaler CEO Farrell Hirsch and now the Salvador Dali exhibition will be on display through June 28.
The show in The Muck’s main gallery features 50 pieces signed by the surrealist from Feldman’s personal collection, described by curators as an exhibit featuring “images of sensuality and eroticism.”
Pieces include “The Pantagruel Suite,” “Space Elephant,” “The Persistence of Memory” and “Woman Aflame.”
“There’s a lot of bodies, a lot of supple flesh,” Pritchard said. “It’s a romantic, sexy collection. At least that’s how I view it.
“Dali obviously was a student of science and history and alchemy and loved the occult,” she added. “And he was just very erotically charged in life and he worshipped his wife, Gala, and I think obviously his love and devotion to her influenced his work.”
Feldman learned of the collection of some of Dali’s lesser known works from a friend who stumbled upon it in the shed of a man who had died in rural Appalachia.
Unaware of what they were, Feldman’s friend said, “I found these things and I am going to throw them away unless you want them.”
Feldman purchased the collection. Soon he reached out to Pritchard.
A note from Feldman is posted on the wall in the entranceway into the exhibit.
“The collection’s story is that I got lucky,” Feldman wrote. “The collection found me. I can’t make any claim to a methodical and diligent acquisition strategy.”
Feldman went through extensive research to verify the authenticity of the pieces and to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the art and artist.
“It’s been authenticated numerous times,” Pritchard said.
Dali was 84 when he died on Jan. 23, 1989.
In Dali’s obituary, The New York Times described the artist as a “Pioneer of European Surrealism and for more than half a century one of the best-known and most bitterly contested figures in the international art world.”
With the Muckenthaler’s 100th anniversary coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the Surrealist Movement, the timing of the Dali exhibit can be seen as serendipitous, said Calie Prendiville Johnson, the Muckenthaler’s communications director.
“So, it seems like there’s some really cool crossovers happening in terms of the timelines of both of those things,” she said. “I’m more of a casual fan, but I know who Dali is and I’m familiar with the work, and so I think it’s exciting.”
The Muckenthaler will have special Sunday hours for the Dali exhibit.
For more information on hours and the museum, visit themuck.org.
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