Saint Petersburg, 11 january 2011
The new Dalí Museum in Florida was inaugurated on 11 January 2011 at eleven minutes past eleven in the morning.
Princess Cristina de Borbón took part in the inaugural ceremony for the new museum, as did the Managing Director of the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Joan Manuel Sevillano, the Foundation's General Secretary Lluís Peñuelas and various representatives of Cadaqués and Figueres town councils.
In a modern style, with architecture reminiscent of the geodesic dome of the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, the building is the new headquarters of a private institution founded in 1982 in order to preserve the artistic legacy collected down through the years by Albert Reynolds Morse and his wife Eleanor, who were friends of Dalí and Gala for 45 years.
Before cutting the inaugural ribbon, Princess Cristina noted that the new museum would reinforce the cultural links between Spain and the United States and confirm the international importance of Dalí’s legacy.
By way of offering its congratulations to its American counterpart, the Educational Service of the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres has undertaken educational work along with the Friends of the Dalí Museums. Their work consisted in two workshop visits aimed at families and called “Get Surreal. A message for the Florida museum”, held on 29 and 30 December. The visit closed with the making of a collage-based Surrealist postcard taking inspiration in the mail art widely used by Surrealist artists. The originals of the postcards were sent to the Educational Service of the Dalí Museum in Saint Petersburg.
