Dalí Universe

The Dalí Universe was a gallery of Salvador Dalí’s work that stood on London’s South Bank for nearly a decade. It filled 3,000 square metres of galleries at County Hall with bronze sculptures, drawings, lithographs, glass and gold pieces, and furniture inspired by Dalí. Over five hundred works were on display, ranging from sculptures made between 1935 and 1984 to a large oil painting from the film Spellbound. The exhibition was curated by Beniamino Levi, an Italian gallerist and collector who assembled the collection. The London show opened in 2000 and closed in January 2010, after which the main part of the collection moved to Espace Dalí in Paris. Parts of the collection have still toured internationally, appearing in Beijing in 2018 and Liège in 2016, as well as in cities such as Singapore, Taipei, Shanghai, New York, Florence and Venice. The London exhibition was never intended as a permanent fixture but served as a semi-permanent showcase of Dalí’s three-dimensional art. Inside the County Hall galleries visitors found bronze sculptures arranged alongside drawings and lithographs. Gold and glass objects stood near Dalí-inspired furniture, giving the space a varied but cohesive feel. A single large painting linked to the film Spellbound provided a focal point among the smaller works. The setting itself, a suite of rooms on the South Bank, offered a straightforward route through the exhibits without elaborate staging.