Art Institute exhibit hoping to rescue Salvador Dali’s artistic reputation

Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali stands beside his painting entitled “Christ of St John On The Cross” at his studio at Port Lligat on Nov. 17, 1951, near Cadaques, Spain. (Getty Images)

No 20th-century artist is more recognizable than Salvador Dali, with his trademark handle-bar mustache and wild-eyed looks. 

But the surrealist’s over-the-top antics and voracious hunger for money and celebrity, especially later in his life, went far in damaging a serious artistic reputation that was crowned with a 1941-42 retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.