GOODBYE DALI Part 7: Major Cultural Institution & $600,000 (#90): A. Reynolds Morse (Ren) always considered the Dali Museum a small museum featuring only the work of an unappreciated artist. After all the trouble with “The St. Petersburg Times” (“Times”), he also felt unappreciated. He was very concerned about getting the Dali Museum on sound financial footing so that he could be confident the collection wouldn’t be broken up after his death. The State of Florida had helped underwrite part of the operating cost for the first 5 years, but that was over when I was hired. Ren felt a lot of pressure and pushed me, but I understood.
Our State Representative from St. Petersburg, Peter Rudy Wallace, was very supportive of the Dali Museum and met with Ren a number of time to discuss the Museum’s finances. Peter agreed that the Dali Museum deserved continued help from the State of Florida, and offered to help secure funding. He stressed, however, that it was extremely important that we follow established channels first. If that didn’t work, the he would sit down with Ren and figure out how to proceed.
Peter told us about a program the State of Florida already had in place to support “Major Cultural Institutions.” If we were able to get that designation, the Dali Museum would receive $600,000 a year, which was more than the current operating budget.
Ren was against the idea from the beginning, but Peter stood firm. Stu Smith, the first Director of the Museum had tried to get Accreditation from the American Association Museum. Ren had said it was a stupid idea from the beginning and that Accreditation was denied. The truth was that Ren didn’t like the questions, pulled the application, and soon thereafter fired Stu.
The application for accreditation would probably have been denied anyway because the Museum didn’t have an Art PhD on staff. Ren thought the Museum didn’t need one, because he and Joan knew more than anyone else about Dali. Hiring an Art PhD would have been a needless waste of money for “a small one artist museum.” The obvious solution would have been to help Joan Kropf get her PhD. I intended to pursue that once we were receiving the State Funds as a Major Cultural Institution.
Peter Wallace helped convince Ren that it was necessary to apply to the State, and Ren finally agreed that Joan and I could waste our time. As you would imagine, the application for designation as a Major Cultural Institution was quite involved. Joan handled the art portion, and I took the business portion.
The application was well done, and the Salvador Dali Museum was not portrayed as a small one artist museum, but as a unique Museum with one of the most valuable art collections in the State of Florida. The Salvador Dali Museum was drawing attention and visitors from around the globe. Unfortunately, that was not the way The Dali Museum was perceived by the art museum directors around the State, with the exception of the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts.
Other art museums were offended by our firm policy of not loaning our paintings, as I discussed in #84 when Betty Sembler called me about Armand Hammer wanting to arranged loan exhibits between the Hermitage and the Dali Museum. In the opinion of most museum directors in the State, we were just a “collection with a big store.” That was an opinion we could easily have changed by putting together a Dali exhibit that would travel to other museums and increase their attendance. I agreed with Ren’s policy of not loaning our paintings, and focusing only on Dali. If people want to see Dali, they have to come to the Salvador Dali Museum.
This put me at a disadvantage when I went to Tallahassee to make our presentation to Division of Cultural Affairs of the Florida Arts Council. The presentations were made over two days, and the presentation for the Salvador Dali was on the second day. I don’t know if Peter Wallace asked Peyton Fearington, the Director, to put the Dali Museum on the second day. If so, thank you Peter and Peyton. It was a huge help. The first day, I had bit of a chance to speak with members of the Selection Committee on breaks and at lunch.
I had to be careful not to appear over anxious, but several Committee Members had noticed the big stack of books I had placed on the table in front of me and asked about them. I explained that they were all either written by Ren or translated from French by Eleanor. That gave me the opportunity to add that the Morses were not only exceedingly generous, but also scholars dedicated to making their knowledge of Salvador Dali available to the public.
My good fortune continued when I was invited to dinner with the Committee Members. I brought my brief case full of books, but left it on the floor by my chair. I was polite, but not the least bit pushy, during dinner. I don’t think I was like any of the lawyers they were used to being around.
After dinner, I was asked several questions about the Morses and the Dali Museum. I explained how surprised I had been when I first went to the Museum. Dali was not at all what I expected, the paintings needed to be seen in person to be fully appreciated. I offered to loan each of them for the night a copy of “Salvador Dali, A Panorama of His Art”, featuring the paintings in our collection. I had brought enough copies for everyone to take a book.
The theme of our presentation the next day was the growing appreciation of Salvador Dali, and the extraordinary value of our collection. The breath of our collection and the fact that we had two scholars who knew Dali so well, made the Dali Museum unique in the world.
Stressed was the fact that the attendance at the Dali Museum would grow dramatically as more and more people had the chance to see the paintings for themselves. How could anyone appreciate the 10’ x 13’ “Hallucinogenic Toreador”, when they had only seen an 81/2” X 10” reproduction if a book? The Salvador Dali Museum was a gem that would enhance the reputation of the State of Florida in the art world, and thereby help increase the stature of every art museum in the State.
At the end of the day, our application was approved and the Salvador Dali Museum was designated a Major Cultural Institution by the State of Florida. We had done what many thought would be impossible. Surely, Ren would be proud of my work at last!
As the Committee Members attempted to return their copies of “Salvador Dali, A Panorama of His Art”, I invite them to keep it as a token of Reynolds and Eleanor Morse’s appreciation, noting that Ren and Eleanor had signed each copy.
Before I went to the airport to fly home, I called Rem with the good news. His response, “That money won’t combine until a year from October. What do we do until then?”
When I got to the office there was a letter from Ren on my desk and it was not one of congratulations! Instead, Ren hadn’t even bothered to take back the three page letter accusing me of wasting my time and failing.
I was fired less than 6 months later.
