In his surrealist heyday, Salvador Dali made his name a byword with his meticulously rendered crutches, melon-shaped buttocks and limp watches dramatically set against elongated dream vistas. But when Dali moved his subconscious props into religious art after World War II, his work left the critics cold. For his recent Manhattan show Dali personally grabbed the limelight by mugging with his wax-bean mustache, but his work drew a bouquet of cabbages. His smooth-as-melted-ice-cream paint surfaces reminded one critic of "old miniatures painted on celluloid." Other critics deplored the "vacant trivialities" in the show.
Last week the critics were taken up short. Manhattan's...
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