Figueres, 26 May 2005
He was received by the Chairman of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Ramon Boixadós, the Vice-Chairman and Director of the Dalí Theatre-Museum, Antoni Pitxot, and Montse Aguer, Director of the Centre for Dalinian Studies. For over an hour he was accompanied around the museum and the Dalí·Jewels area, and then finally visited the Centre for Dalinian Studies where he was shown the copy Salvador Dalí had in his library of one of Dr. Watson’s most famous books, The Double Helix, with notes and drawings by the artist. The media were able to take pictures of this exceptional visit to the Fishmongers’ Room, where the scientist stood beside the Salvador Dalí work entitled The Structure of DNA. According to Dalí, this discovery corroborated the existence of God, whereas for Watson it showed precisely the opposite. The scientist thought back to the anecdote about the time he visited Dalí in New York back in the ‘sixties, when he sent him a note saying “the second-most-intelligent person in the world wants to meet the most intelligent”.
James Dewey Watson was born in Chicago (USA) in 1928. He received the Nobel Prize in 1962, shared with Francis H. Crick and Maurice Wilkins. Spanish scientists such as Severo Ochoa (whom Dalí knew personally) and Santiago Ramón y Cajal have also received the prize. Dr. Watson was visiting Catalonia on the occasion of his investiture as doctor honoris causa by the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
