Dalí: Disruption + Devotion, co-organized by The Dalí Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, explores Salvador Dalí’s artistic dialogue with the European painters who came before him. Through compelling pairings of works across centuries, the exhibition highlights how Dalí revered and reworked the traditions he inherited.
Featuring 67 works spanning nearly five centuries, this exhibition brings together paintings, drawings and prints from both organizing museum’s collections. Renowned works by El Greco, Orazio Gentileschi and Diego Velázquez hang alongside Dalí’s own, inviting visitors to trace the influence and inspiration that defined his career.
While Dalí is best known for his radical innovations and provocations as a surrealist artist, he was also a devoted student of art history and religion, at once honoring the past and challenging it through his imaginative approach. Through striking pairings and thematic groupings, Dalí: Disruption + Devotion keeps both aspects in view, offering new insight into the iconoclast who kept returning to the predecessors he set out to unsettle.
This exhibition is presented by The Dalí Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, curated by Dr. Jennifer Cohen, Director of Curatorial Affairs at The Dalí Museum and Frederick Ilchman, Chair and Mrs. Russell W. Baker, Curator of Paintings, Art of Europe at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Banner image: Salvador Dalí, Velázquez Painting the Infanta Margarita with the Lights and Shadows of His Own Glory, 1958, The Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida.