Hello Dalí: Surrealist’s return to Monterey

Known for its aquarium, jazz festival, literary history and spectacular landscapes, Monterey has recently added the second-largest collection of works by Salvador Dalí in the United States to its major tourist draws.

The owner of the collection, Dmitry Piterman, and the Monterey History and Art Association entered into a joint venture that has Piterman managing the daily operations of the new museum.

Piterman, a Pebble Beach businessman, began building his collection in the late 1980s just after his graduation from UC Berkeley and has been looking for a permanent home for the collection after holding exhibitions in Spain and Belgium.

While the works comprise the second-largest private collection of original Dalí art in the country, the museum is the largest on the West Coast.

Named for the original 17 Mile Drive, which began at Monterey’s Hotel Del Monte, Dalí17 showcases Dalí works that have been authenticated by the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation.

While living there in the 1940s, the artist was involved in the local art scene, was an early member of the Carmel Art Association and participated as a juror for the local high school arts competition.

Dalí and his wife, Gala, held a party in 1941 at the hotel, called “A Surrealistic Night in an Enchanted Forest,” which was a fundraiser to aid refugee artists in Europe during World War II, much like himself.

The museum has also launched a speaker series in its theater, so that devotees of surrealism can both view the museum’s collection and dive into the topic more deeply.

Driven by his paranoiac-critical method, Dalí added color and Freudian elements (spoons, flies, soft watches, excrement, drawers, copulating beans, cutlets and other elements) to bring his renditions alive.

Combining Dalí’s personal motifs with the symbolism of thousands of years of alchemy, each graphic work represents a particular theme relating to the ancient text.

The elephant is a recurring theme that appears in several of Dalí’s paintings, such as “The Temptation of Saint Anthony.”

“Space Elephant” appears small and fragile, yet its frail and skeletal legs inexplicably support the crushing weight of the obelisk.

The contrast between weight and size is realistically impossible, but Dalí’s physical depiction makes it appear weightless and powerful, as if spiritually reaching for the heavens.

Dalí was commissioned by the Italian government to illustrate this special edition of “The Divine Comedy” to commemorate the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s birth.

Dalí’s grotesque and sublime images capture Dante’s mysterious verbal imagery.

The illustrations and text mirror the search for meaning through the exploration of dreams and mystical worlds.