The Salvador Dali Museum at Bayboro Harbor, on the shores of Tampa Bay, contains 95 oil paintings and more than 100 watercolors and drawings, in addition to numerous graphics, posters, photos, sculptures and other works of art. The works were donated to Tampa Bay by Cleveland industrialist A. Reynolds Morse and his wife, Eleanor, who were friends of Dali and his wife, Gala, for 45 years until Dali's death in 1989.

The Morses had sought a site for the collection for some time, but could only find museums that wanted just a few pieces of Dali art. A 1980 Wall Street Journal story about their dilemma caught the eye of a St. Petersburg lawyer, James W. Martin. He organized a group of community leaders who saw the Dali collection as a tourism plus, and they found a home for the Dali works in an abandoned boat warehouse owned by the city. Following renovation of the building, the museum opened in March 1982.

Dali was best known for his Surrealist period (1929-39), but the St. Petersburg collection contains work dating to 1914 and represents his entire career. In fact, perhaps one of the museum's more popular pieces, "The Hallucinogenic Toreador," was painted by Dali in 1969 and 1970. A viewer's eyes immediately see a series of Venus de Milo types of figures in the painting, but when the viewer looks more deeply and with focus, figures of a bullfighter and bull appear.

"When people come here, the work they remember and are most drawn to is this one here," says Kathleen White, a museum official. "The Hallucinogenic Toreador" stands 161 inches tall and is from Dali's Masterworks period (1948-1970), during which he created much bigger paintings from earlier in his career. The St. Petersburg museum is home to six such works. Those paintings include another popular piece, "The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus."

Other Dali paintings of note at the museum include: "Nature Morte Vivante" (Fast Moving Still Life), from 1956; "Girl's Back," from 1926; "Apparatus and Hand," from 1927, and "Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory," 1952-54. Other works of art include "The Lobster Telephone" (1938), a bone-colored phone with a lobster figure serving as the ear-and-mouth piece.

The Dali Museum also sponsors temporary exhibits of other artists. Featured through Jan. 16, 2000 is "Andre Masson: The 1930s." Masson was a Surrealist at the same time as Dali, and the display of the former's work is characterized by specific themes -- massacres and combats, insects, Spanish myths and bullfights.

The Salvador Dali Museum is open 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, except Thursdays, when the museum's open until 8 p.m., and Sunday, when the opening time is noon. The museum is closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission is $9 for adults, $7 for seniors 65-plus, $5 for students and free to children 10 and under. On Thursdays, from 5 to 8 p.m., admission is half-price. Group rates (15 or more) are available by advance registration. Phone: (727) 823-3767.
Web: www.daliweb.com