GOODBYE DALI Part1: From the Start (#84): Don’t you hate it when the title gives away the ending of a book or movie? I walked into the Salvador Dali Museum on Monday morning, ready to start my new job. The Museum was closed on Mondays and I passed a car parked outside the front door. The small, white 4-door sedan sported a bumper sticker “Don’t Trust The Liberal Media”. When I found out the car belonged to A. Reynolds Morse (Ren), I thought, “This isn’t going to go well.” It didn’t.
“The St. Petersburg Times” (“Times”) was one of the biggest donors to the Museum and one of the bigger thorns in Ren’s side. Unfortunately, things were adversarial from the beginning and I would get caught up in the mess as things got worse. Interesting how two of the biggest and most important gifts to St. Petersburg became at odds with each other.
In “The St. Petersburg Times” (#77), I discussed that Nelson Poynter acquired all of the shares of the Times Publishing Company and left them to what is now the Poynter Institute. Thanks to Nelson Poynter’s gift, St. Petersburg not only has one of the country’s finest journalism schools, but will also always have one of the finest independently owned newspapers in the nation.
The only gift to compare, is Elenor and Reynold’s Morse’s gift of their magnificent collection of art by Salvador Dali. It started when St. Petersburg attorney, Jim Martin, saw a “Wall Street Journal” article, “U.S. Art World Dillydallies Over Dalis”. Ren had offered his collection, then valued at between $25 and $50 Million, to the Cleveland Museum of Art on the condition that the collection be kept in tact, with nothing sold and nothing loaned. Ren envisioned a separate building and that he would curate the initial installation. The Cleveland Museum of Art turned him down!
Jim Martin, Jack Lake, and Jim Healy went to Cleveland to talk with Eleanor and Ren about a home for their collection in St. Petersburg, Florida. They agreed to come take a look and found what they were looking for in a marine warehouse adjoining the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida. After Ren chose St. Petersburg, the state of Florida paid $2-million to refurbish the building as a museum and another $1-million to help cover operating expenses.
When the Salvador Dali Museum opened in March of 1982, the “Times” published a beautiful, well written Commemorative Section J in the Sunday paper for March 7th. The section was written by Charles Benbow, “Times” Critic and “Times” Staff Writer Ronald Boyd and was very informative about Dali, the Museum, and the dedication and generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Morse.
Two paragraphs on page 9J caused an uproar that I was dealing with nearly 5 years later. In December of 1981 Boyd interviewed Ren for the Commemorative Section. At the time Ren was typing his hand written journals and Boyd saw a few pages. Of the thousands of hours Ren spent writing about Dali, what are the odds that Boyd would see these?
Here is what Boyd attributed to Ren: “Art is not the pure and dispassionate thing that so many people believe it to be,” he wrote in his journal in 1960 from Paris. “Behind the scenes it is vile and conniving, lending itself especially to an amorality of the Jews attracted to it for easy money.”
Boyd continued that Morse still believes Jews “ruined” and “exploited” the world art market. To him such ideas were not anti-Semitic, they were simply “telling it like it is.” Boyd continued with two paragraphs of Dali and Ren making an unflattering quotes about each other.
In nearly 4 years, I never heard Ren make an anti-Semitic remark. Eleanor and Ren’s daughter-in-law was Jewish and they had a grandchild. Keep in mind, Ren was a brilliant man, a Harvard Business School graduate. IMS, the company he founded, was a leader in the field of plastics. Ren was also 68 years old, a bit of contrarian, and could be abrupt. I believe what happened was that Ren had some specific people in mind who happened to be Jewish, and he identified them as such in his 1960 journal. He may have resented being questioned about his personal journals by a young reporter and replied, “I meant what I said” not adding the “at the time” he felt was implied, or mentioning his daughter-in-law. Ren never imagined this discussion would make it into the papers.
As a result, when Eleanor and Ren should have been enjoying the achievement of a lifetime, they were beseeched with claims that Ren was anti-Semitic. Eleanor was mortified, Ren was furious. In Ren’s final journal, the entry in questions reads “persons”, not “Jews”. On March 8th, Ren wrote a letter of apology, which many felt did not go far enough.
When I arrived at the Dali Museum in early 1987, it was brought to my attention that there still existed tension between members of the Jewish community and the Dali Museum. With the help of Eleanor Morse and my friends Ira and Beverly Mitlin, and Eddie Silverberg, from the Sunshine City Jaycees we addressed the problem. Over several months there were a series of luncheons and private tours of the Museum.
In July of 1987, Ren agreed to loan our 25 Lithographs of the Aliyah, made by Dali to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of Israel, to the Temple Bethel Art Show for display. Sonya Miller, Elli Argintar, Jane Silverberg, and Betty Sembler were key in finally putting the matter to rest. Eleanor and Ren were extremely grateful, and I thank them again.
In February 1989, President George H. W. Bush appointed Mel Sembler Ambassador to Australia. Betty Sembler kept the Dali Museum in mind, and while I was still with the Museum, tried to help us on at least two occasions.
Betty suggested Joe Zappala, then the Ambassador to Spain, come to the Museum. I arranged for a private tour before the Museum opened to the public. which Ren conducted personally. Since I had worked with the Ambassador’s office to make the arrangements, I accompanied them on the tour.
By way of background, we had been having problems with the spot lights used to light the paintings burning out. Not the light bulbs, but the light fixtures themselves. The spot lights cost $75 each. Mike, our maintenance man, was very conscientious and took one of the lights apart to see if it could be fixed. He came to me and said, “Scott, the problem is just this part. It only costs $1.75, but I have to buy 1,000.” I talked with the secretary of the President of the company, and he agreed to sell us 100. The parts were being shipped and I had told Mr. Morse the good news.
During the tour we stopped at the Masterwork, “The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus”. As Ren was telling the Ambassador about the painting, the Ambassador commented that the “lighting seemed a little dark.” The painting was over 14’ tall and over 9’ wide, and was difficult to light. As always, Joan Kropf had done an excellent job, but one of the lights was burned out. Ren was embarrassed and blamed it on me being too cheap to buy the proper lights. “He doesn’t know any thing about running a museum, just raising money, but he keeps insinuating himself.” It turned out to just be a burned out light bulb. We still had several light fixtures in reserve.
One other story. I was on vacation in New York city, visiting my friend Vince Giordano and watching his 12 piece big band “The Nighthawks.” I got a message to call Betty Sembler. She was so excited, “I spoke to Armand Hammer. He would like to personally arrange an exchange between the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg Russia.”
Uh-oh! How was I going to get out of this? “That is amazing Betty. I’ll call Mr. Morse, right way.” I went on the explain that the Museum had a policy of not loaning paintings. Mr. Morse made an exception once while the collection was in Cleveland. Adding, not only was the painting photographed violating the terms of the loan agreement, but it was badly damaged when the photographer left if under lights while going out to lunch. Betty added, “This is the Hermitage. You could pick just about anything you want! It would really put St. Petersburg on the map.”
Dreading what was about to happen, I called Ren. “Scott, that is just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of. You know we don’t lend our paintings. Ship them off to Russia? How do we even know we’d get them back?” “I understand Ren. I explained that it was against our policy to loan paintings.” “Why would you tell her anything without asking me first. You are not in charge here.” “I understand Ren. Would you like to talk to Betty? I understand. What would you like me to tell her?”
I waited a while to call Betty back, “Eleanor and Reynolds are extremely flattered that Mr. Hammer would think of the Salvador Dali Museum. The Hermitage is one of the finest museums in the world and it would be an honor to work with Mr Hammer and the staff of the Hermitage. The offer was given serious consideration, but unfortunately the Museum is unable to make an exception to its firm policy of not lending our paintings. To keep the St. Petersburg connection, I am sure the Museum of Fine Arts would be thrilled to work with Mr. Hammer. Betty,I want to personally thank you for taking the time to convey the exciting news, and for all you are doing to help the Dali Museum.”
I understood exactly where Ren was coming from in both instances, and tried to take nothing personally. The Salvador Dali collection was the work and achievement of a lifetime. Ren expected all things connected with the Museum to be perfect. Each and every painting was precious, and Ren would do everything in is power to protect them. And, I was learning a lot from Ren and Joan.
Editor’s Note: I thought long and hard about writing this, or about any of my other experiences at the Dali Museum. I don’t want to sound ungrateful. It was a once in a lifetime experience and I thank Ren for giving me a chance. I sincerely apologize if anything I write upsets Brad Morse or disappoints Tom James.
