Why is the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, FL?

The Dalí Museum is in St. Petersburg, FL, because of Reynolds and Eleanor Morse and the residents of the Florida city. After viewing an exhibition of Salvador Dalí's works in 1942, the Morses became avid collectors and developed a friendship with the Surrealist artist. By the late 1970s, they decided to make their private collection available for the public to view and opened a museum in Cleveland, Ohio. After reading a Wall Street Journal article about Dalí, organizers in St. Petersburg began lobbying to relocate the Morses’ museum to the city. They succeeded, leading to the establishment of the first Salvador Dalí Museum in 1982. In 2010, the museum moved to a larger, newly built space in the city. On 1stDibs, find a range of Salvador Dalí art.