The house manages to feel both intimate and uncluttered, though it does contain a veritable grandma's attic of furnishings. During a roughly hour-long guided tour, which included Dali's studio, the library, the bedroom, an oval sitting room and patios, I encountered everything from a stuffed polar bear and a white plastic Michelin Man to olive trees planted in gigantic coffee cups and a collection of kitschy ceramic Pierrot figurines.
It was the mundane rather than the outlandish, however, that ultimately led me to prefer the Portlligat house to the other Dali sites I'd visited. Compared with the Figueres museum, there was far less to see in terms of art and stage-set decor, but this freed me to concentrate on Dali the man, not his self-created legend. Here was someone who, as a shuffling septuagenarian, replaced his bedroom fireplace with a door to more easily reach his favorite patio; who loved and kept canaries and crickets; who placed a mirror so that, from his bed each morning, he could see the light of the rising sun. Here also was a man with an all-too-human weakness for fame. In one antechamber, cupboard doors are plastered with photos of Dali and Gala hobnobbing with celebrities such as Ingrid Bergman, Picasso, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Franco -- this last a reminder of why post-World War II Catalonia was slow to embrace its native son.
Dali oversaw the creation of the Dali Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Spain.
()Fundacio Gala-Salvador Dali)
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Through a single, everyday object -- Dali's container of Johnson's baby powder, sitting on his bathroom shelf -- I was most able to sense a connection with the house where the artist and his wife had spent so many years. Perhaps it was the homey, personal nature of the object, but it unexpectedly moved me. I can't explain it, except to say that the world is indeed a surreal place when a bit of old powder can do that.
Christopher Hall is a freelance writer in San Francisco.
Details: Salvador Dali Sites in Spain
Information about all three Dali sites can be found at the Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation's Web site www.salvador-dali.org.
• The Gala-Dali Castle Museum-House (Pubol, 011-34-972-488-655) is open March 13-Jan. 6; hours from June 15 to Sept. 15 are daily, 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., with shorter hours and Monday and holiday closings the rest of the year. Admission is $6.60.
• The Dali Theatre-Museum (Figueres, 011-34-972-677-500) is open daily from July through September, 9 a.m. to 7:45 p.m., with shorter hours and Monday and holiday closings the rest of the year. Admission is about $10.80; tickets good for an exhibit of Dali jewelry only are about $5.40. Two-hour tours are offered this summer for $7.20; an English-language tour takes place daily at 5 p.m.
• The Salvador Dali Museum-House (Portlligat, 011-34-972-251-015) can be visited only on guided tours that leave every 10 minutes; reservations required. It is open from March 13 to Jan. 6; hours from June 15 to Sept. 15 are daily, 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., with shorter hours and Monday and holiday closings the rest of the year. Admission is about $9.60.
CENTENNIAL EVENTS: Dali's centenary is being commemorated in Spain and beyond with a host of exhibitions, performances and other special events. One of the most significant happenings is "Dali: Mass Culture," an exhibition of 400 art works and objects reflecting how the artist broke down barriers between high and low culture; the exhibit is at Madrid's Queen Sofia museum June 22-Aug. 30, then travels to the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Oct. 1-Jan. 12, 2005) and Rotterdam's Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum (Feb. 15-April 15, 2005).
Another show of 150 important paintings, "Salvador Dali: Anthological Exhibition," is at Venice's Palazzo Grassi Sept. 5-Jan. 9, 2005, before traveling to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Feb. 6-May 15, 2005).
Other exhibits include "Dali's Land" (Figueres, through August; Barcelona, September through November); "Private Memories: Salvador Dali's Childhood and Youth" (Figueres, through Sept. 30); "The Quixote According to Salvador Dali" (Pubol, through Nov. 1); "Dali & Lorca" (Barcelona, through July 4); "Dali and Optical Illusions" (Girona, June 14-Sept. 12); and "Salvador Dali: Drawings" (Cadaques, through October).
Among the more significant performing arts events are Dali-designed productions of the opera "Salome" and ballets such as "The Three-Cornered Hat," to be staged in July and August at the Peralada Castle Festival in northeast Catalonia.
INFORMATION: Details on Dali centenary events are available at the Dali Theatre-Museum in Figueres (see above), the Tourist Office of Figueres (011-34-972-503-155, www.figueresciutat.com) and the Catalonia Information Center at Barcelona's Palau Robert (011-34-932-388-091). Information can also be found online at www.dali2004.org.
-- Christopher Hall
