ARTS ALIVE! St. Pete Catalyst's Bill DeYoung: Peter Tush, The Dali

Peter Tush has been with the Dalí Museum, in St. Petersburg, for 39 years and change. Tush was a college student when he started as a gift shop clerk and docent. Carrying a Masters in Art History, today he is Curator and Senior Interpreter.  What that means is, Tush is among the elite few who are eminently qualified to discuss not only the late, great Surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, for whom the museum is named, but the history of the institution, the collection and the building itself.

Today on Arts Alive!, Bill DeYoung is focused on two new exhibitions: The Architecture of the Dalí, which opened May 2, and Dalí in America, which will be unveiled Saturday. Tush is involved, as you might expect, with both of them.  The Architecture of the Dalí traces the evolution of the facility, which began in 1982, seeded with the expansive collection of art owned by Reynolds and Eleanor Morse of Cleveland, Ohio (they were also friendly with Dalí himself).

The City of St. Petersburg agreed to house the collection, and in 2011 the present building, designed in whimsical Surrealist style by Yann Weymouth, opened to the public. It is estimated that 10 million visitors have come through the front door since ’82.  This exhibition also takes visitors inside the Dalí’s upcoming $65 million expansion.

Dalí in America, Tush explains, follows the eccentric Spanish artist’s relationship with the United States, its people, artists and (especially) its pop culture. It was a symbiotic bond that began with Dali’s first stateside visit in 1934.

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