Clyde Butcher: Visions of Dalí’s Spain
To create this special exhibition, The Dalí invited Clyde Butcher, the renowned nature photographer often called “Florida’s Ansel Adams,” to explore and visually document Salvador Dalí’s homeland. Clyde Butcher: Vision’s of Dalí’s Spain provides a technically brilliant, epically scaled view of Dalí’s beloved environs, to creates a euphoric experience of immersion.
For Salvador Dalí, the landscape of his homeland was always an essential feature of his work and outlook on life. He would often proclaim that the Catalonian coastline was the most sublime in the world, and the perfect place for someone “to become Dalí.” Nearly a year ago, The Dalí Museum sought out Butcher to use his talents to capture a body of photos of Dalí’s Mediterranean home, featuring some of the world’s most dramatic landscapes. Viewers are invited to not only appreciate the splendor that Dalí saw in this part of Spain, but also to contemplate his homeland from a new perspective. Butcher traveled to the village of Cadaqués where Dalí spent summers growing up, Dalí’s villa in Port Lligat and the rugged area of Cap de Creus – all areas that are prominently featured in Dalí’s works. The thoughtfully curated collection will feature 41 photos that take viewers on a journey through the Catalonian region, with images ranging from an intimate 2 feet to a panoramic 8 feet in width. The show will be Butcher’s first photo exhibition of Spain, as well as the first time he has been commissioned to photograph an area that influenced another artist.
Clyde Butcher: Visions of Dalí’s Spain is co-organized by The Dalí and Clyde Butcher & the Butcher family, and curated by Museum Curator of Education Peter Tush. The exhibit is made possible by support from the Butcher family, The Trustees of The Dalí, The Guild at The Dalí, Dalí Museum Members and Johnson PhotoImaging, Inc. and Trenam Law.
Above: Plaja S’Arenella with Boat, 40×96” ©Clyde Butcher/Window of the Eye Inc. Courtesy of The Dalí, ©2018–Salvador Dalí Museum, Inc., St. Petersburg, FL. Below: Dali’s Port Lligat House Exterior, 55×96” ©Clyde Butcher/Window of the Eye Inc. Courtesy of The Dalí, ©2018–Salvador Dalí Museum, Inc., St. Petersburg, FL.; Cap de Creus 5, 35×52” ©Clyde Butcher/Window of the Eye Inc. Courtesy of The Dalí, ©2018–Salvador Dalí Museum, Inc., St. Petersburg, FL.; Cadaqués 2, 26×38” ©Clyde Butcher/Window of the Eye Inc. Courtesy of The Dalí, ©2018–Salvador Dalí Museum, Inc., St. Petersburg, FL.
