Dali Planet #182:
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
“This picture, because of its size,” Dalí told Robert Descharnes of “Santiago el Grande”, “was destined to know many mishaps.”
Once completed, the window of his studio at the Port Lligat house had to be enlarged to allow the canvas to be moved out, and then it had to be carted by truck rather than train to Le Havre for shipment to New York, where an exhibition was waiting at the Carstairs Gallery.
A crane was hired to hoist the painting up to the second-floor gallery, whose owner, George Keller, fretted that no one would ever buy so big an artwork. Once it did find a home, in the Beaverbrook collection in New Brunswick, Canada, the scale of the work ensured that it would never move again.
