Dali Magazine Mall

12/13/2025

Different
Usually on Saturday I post a number of Dali related photos. Today here’s something a little different for you.

I have been playing around with Photoshop colorizing old black and white photos. The results were mixed. Some were easy and quick with great results and others were slow and difficult with mixed results. I then began playing with AI colorizers. Some were excellent, quick and had excellent results.

I’ve now stumbled on to an AI site that turns black and white or color photos into pencil drawings. Wow, I think they are fantastic. Here’s some of Dali and a few of my very old family photos of my mother, twin sisters and me for you to hopefully enjoy.

12/12/2025

Gala – The short version

"Dali may have worshiped Gala, but he was also afraid of her. In that he was not alone.

Most men and nearly every woman - for she detested rivals of her own s*x - found her tyrannical... She was cruel, fierce and small... She collected fluffy, stuffed animals, but once she cooked up her live pet rabbit for lunch. When people annoyed her, she would spit at them... She was greedy as well as s*xually voracious."

Tim McGirk "Wicked Lady: Salvador Dali's Muse”

I am working on an elongated Gala story but in the meantime can I recommend McGirk’s book to you? It is excellent.

The pictures shown here of Gala were taken by famed fashion photographer Horst P. Horst. The first one is a practice shot to determine the best pose. The second is pretty much what he wanted except she is facing left. The third photo is what actually ran in in the June 1943 issue of Vogue. Sorry about the quality of the photo but I sold my copy ages ago. For this published shot Horst has her facing right, added Dali’s (ever the promoter) 1943 painting The Triumph of Tourbillon as a backdrop and as you can see by the red arrow, he also added Gala to the painting. Clever guy.

Since this story is a short story about Gala, I’ve thrown in some extra photos of her that you might enjoy. I hope you like my colorized photos of her.

12/08/2025

Showtime!
Some weeks back I told you about an upcoming show in France being put on by my friend Mickael Mamou. Well, his exhibition has opened and he was kind enough to send me some pictures. If you have the opportunity to visit the exhibition, I encourage you to do so.
I wonder where he got those beautiful Vogue magazines???

12/06/2025

Wow, Saturday already? Another week into the record book. I hope yours was a good week.

12/05/2025

Jon Stevens and the Silver People

Jon Stevens met Dali in 1967 when he was working as a fashion model in New York. According to Stevens, Dali saw him in a Newsweek magazine and contacted him to be a model for a painting. The painting was called Galitee and the Swan. Supposedly the painting was stolen in France years later and never recovered. I have my doubts about this because it doesn’t show up on the Foundation’s art index or anywhere on the internet, but who knows?

Anyway, our interest here is that Jon was chosen to create a sort of “happening” at Dali’s 1974 Knoedler Gallery opening. Jon decided to trot out what he called his “Silver People”. The two models he brought with him were a mother and her daughter. The daughter appears to be way too young for this nonsense. These partially painted n**e “silver people” models would be fully painted from head to toe in silver paint in front of the gallery audience and would then rub against a canvas to create a painting.

I can’t help but wonder if Jon had got the idea for his “Silver People” from the 1964 Bond movie “Goldfinger”. As you may recall, in the movie Jill Masterson (actress Shirley Eaton) was killed by Auric Goldfinger. He had painted her with gold paint and she died of “skin asphyxiation”. To not kill his models Jon did come up with a method of creating a non-toxic paint solution that washes off with soap and water. You can view this shindig on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h80dqZRVkM&t=307s

Here are photos from that day and some shots of Stevens’ better “Silver People” works. Stevens’ never really made it big time with his “Silver People” theme despite Dali giving him a golden opportunity to do so. Pun intended.

12/01/2025

Only 24 more says until Christmas!

Dali’s stay in America during the war years were some of his most productive years, especially with his commercial work. Dali’s commercial work was everywhere with ads for Bryan’s Nylons, De Beers Diamonds, S. C. Johnson and many more. One of Dali’s less successful ventures was with Hallmark Greeting Cards.

In 1948 Hallmark cards released their “Gallery of Artist” line of Christmas cards that featured art by El Greco, Van Gogh, Grandma Moses and of course three by Dali. Although the project was a success overall, it seems that Dali’s art was apparently a bit too advanced for the average Christmas card buyer with a headless angel, a faceless baby Jesus and three snarling wise men. Dali’s cards were pulled from the shelves.

Hallmark gave Dali another chance the following year but that didn’t work out either. Dali presented his Santa with drawers to Hallmark founder Joyce Clyde Hall and Dali was paid but the work was banished to a closet for many years and never distributed commercially.

In 1959 Hallmark commissioned Dali for 10 works to be used in their greeting cards. He produced a Mother’s Day card, a Valentine’s Day card, an Easter card in addition to seven others. Unfortunately only three of Dali’s new designs ever made it to market. It just goes to show you that you can’t win them all.

11/29/2025

Brrr! Getting colder here. Bundle up and enjoy your weekend.

11/28/2025

I got that!
Just like me, Dali collected magazines that had his picture or his art on the cover. Apparently he kept most of his collection glued to a wall in his home at Port Lligat. (See photo). Before my visit there, I knew that he employed a newspaper clipping service that notified him every time his name appeared in print. I didn’t know about his collection of magazines and photos plastered all over the walls of the one room of his home.

Unfortunately I spent most of our very limited time in the room proudly showing my wife all the magazines on that wall that I also had in my collection of Dali magazines. Then I noticed four magazines that I didn’t have just as the guide was ushering us out of the room. In a panic I hastily shot two photos of the missing magazines as the guide barked “Please sir, move on there are other people waiting to come in!”

Although my photos were of poor the quality and lacking in key details like the country of origin of the magazines or their date of issue, these poor quality photos were enough for me to be able to eventually track them down. Now Dali and I have the same magazines in our collections but honestly mine are in much better condition.

I just added another beauty to the collection this week ( #784) that I found buried deep in the bowels of eBay. It is a 1986 poetry magazine titled Clockwatch Review. It is very rare find because it is a low volume specialized magazine that was produced only two issues a year. Besides the very nice cover it only cost me $17.62.

11/27/2025

11/26/2025

Dali and the super model

Only two years after being “discovered” by photographer David McCabe and Nancy White of Bazaar magazine the 6’ 3” 115 pounder became an international super star model. In 1966 Donyale Luna (Peggy Ann Freeman) became the first African-American to appear on the cover of any Vogue magazine (See Photo British Vogue).

She moved to London and became friends with celebrities like Mick Jagger, Michael Caine and Julie Christie. That same year American photographer William Claxton introduced her to Dali in Cadaques. Dali claimed she was the reincarnation of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti and they began working on a non-scripted series of “happenings” for a TV film.

Pictured here are photos of that shoot that appeared in a 1967 issue of Cavalier magazine and photos obtained elsewhere of Dali and Luna.

The story doesn’t end happily for Donyale. Like so many who achieve fame and fortune, they turn to drugs. She died in Rome on May 17, 1979 at the age of 34 of a he**in overdose. To read more of her life may I suggest you read this London Telegraph piece about her.

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9658276/The-tragic-tale-of-Donyale-Luna.html

11/24/2025

Who would have thought
In my collection of magazines, newspapers and newspaper inserts there are 34 from Turkey that have Dali or his art on the cover. You probably would not think of Turkey as a hotbed of Dali activity but their first ever Dali exhibition was held in 2008/09 at Sabanci University Sakip Sabanci Museum and it drew 250,000+ people. In 2020 the museum took the exhibition digital on YouTube.

That was the start of Dali’s popularity there. Pictured here are a few of these covers.

11/23/2025

I hope you read yesterday's addendum to my Nichols portrait. Have a nice Sunday!