How to Visit the Salvador Dali Museum
The Salvador Dali Museum is one of the few museums in the US located within the campus of a university. The large, all-white building in St. Petersburg, Florida holds about 1,500 works of art attributed to Dali, including paintings, sculptures and photographs. The exterior wall features a giant copy of Dali's signature.
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Instructions
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Make Your Visit a Success
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Check the schedule at the Salvador Dali Museum website before you visit (see Resources below). The museum opens and closes at different hours every day. For example, the museum closes at 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays, 6:30 p.m. on Fridays and 5:30 p.m. on other days, but even those hours can change during summer or around the holidays.
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Dali's largest paintings at the St. Petersburg museum, include "The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus", a 14 by 9 foot oil painting that took Dali over a year to complete.
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Study the numerous self-portraits throughout the museum, especially the ones painted in the early 1920s, a difficult time in Dali's life.
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The temporary exhibits combine Salvador Dali's paintings with work created by some of the most renowned names in modern art. The combination of artists sometimes surprising (as a recent show on Dali & The Spanish Baroque demonstrated) but never disappointing.
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Bring the kids along on Saturday mornings, when the museum sponsors special "breakfast" events for the whole family. The interactive events are held before opening hours are limited to 20 attendees.
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Tips & Warnings
The museum's official website offers a series of interactive activities such as crafts and videos for the whole family. The free Dali ecards and quotes collection are also extremely popular.
Take the guided tour if this is your first visit or if you don't know much about Dali's work. While the tour costs an additional fee, it will help you understand the mind of the man behind the paintings.
Come late at night for a unique experience. At different times during the week, films are projected right into the outdoor museum walls, making for a surreal spectacle. The showings are free and change randomly throughout the month.
Take a walk on the waterfront after your museum visit. It's a great way to reflect on the exhibits and to clear the mind.
