Figueres Dalí Theatre Museum Complete Tourist Guide

About Figueres Theatre Museum Dalí

Celebrated 20th century eccentric surrealist artist Salvador Dalí could be considered the most famous citizen from Figueres and it is in this town where we find the main Salvador Dalí museum. An absolute must see for seasoned art enthusiasts and a very bizarre and captivating series of rooms inside a unique building full of visual stimuli.

Dalí Theatre Museum Exterior

The Dalí Theatre-Museum Figueres visit begins outside where you will find the entrance not via the red façaded building but via the theatre building in Plaça Gala i Salvador Dalí. In this public square the first Dalí piece you will see is the ornate Memorial Monument to the Catalan Philosopher Francesc Pujols located in front of the theatre façade.

Plaça Gala i Salvador Dalí continues to the right of the theatre façade where there are three reproductions of the sculpture made by Antoni Merci in 1895 of the painter Meissonier (1815-1891), an artist praised by Dalí. These reproductions are placed on columns formed by six, seven and seventeen tractor wheel tires.

Dalí Theatre Museum Courtyard

Entering the Museum via what was the theatre ticket hall, you are transported into a realm of strange and mesmerising art, featuring some of Dalí's most iconic pieces. The first space you visit is what was the stalls area of the theatre and is now an open-air courtyard dominated by a Cadillac car art piece called Rainy Cadillac (Cadillac plujós) that forms the centre piece of several hanging sculptures. Don't forget to look inside the car windows and look up an all around.

Tip: If you insert a 1€ coin in the metre the Cadillac comes alive.

The courtyard is surrounded on either side by narrow white corridors with the right corridor (facing the stage) containing works by Evarist Vallès and leading into the Dalí Crypt, a space below the stage where he is buried. This area was remodelled in 1997 to exhibit a collection of gold jewels (Dalí d’Or) designed by the artist.

Dalí Theatre Museum Fishmonger's Hall

Leaving the crypt into the Fishmonger's Hall (Sala de Peixateries) which holds a collection of Dalí oils, including the famous Soft Self-Portrait with Fried Bacon (Autoretrat Tou amb Tall de Bacon Fregit) and Dalí Picasso portrait(Retrat de Picasso). The left ground floor corridor contains graphic art by Salvador Dalí

Dalí Theatre-Museum Stage

Proceeding up the stairs onto the stage we are treated to a giant mural painting that spans the full height of the stage. On the left of the stage is an interesting piece that up close is abstract cubist art with a central nude but when you step back and look at it from a distance you see the portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Dalí was inspired to create this painting after reading about optics in a science publication.

Tip: It is on the stage where we find an unmarked stone slab that marks where Dalí is buried. Take moment to look up from the Dalí tomb to see that the stage is topped by a glass dome, the pattern of the structure said to resemble an eye of a fly because Dali thought about the perspective that a fly has on the world through their eyes.

Dalí Theatre-Museum Treasure room

The Treasure room can be found from the stage and is a red walled space containing many Dalí masterpieces:

• Port Alguer: is the port of Cadaqués where Dalí had a summer house (Port Lligat)
• Leda atòmica: a painting od Gala influenced by the myth of Leda and the swan. In Greek mythology, Leda was the daughter of the king of Aetolia, Thestius, and of Eurithemis. Leda married Tyndareus, who upon his expulsion from Lacedaemon was taken in at Thestius' palace. Zeus, father of the gods, fell in love with the beautiful Leda and, when rejected by her, turned himself into a swan. It is said that the same night that Tyndareus coupled with Leda, so too did Zeus, in the form of a swan. Two eggs resulted from the union of Leda with the swan, and each egg gave birth to twins: Castor and Pollux - called the Dioscuri - and Helen and Clytemnestra. One member of each set of twins was immortal and the other mortal.
• The Spectre of Sex Appeal: We see Dalí as a child, dressed as a sailor, looking at an enormous monster, soft and hard at the same time, which for the artist symbolised sexuality, all of it framed by a hyper-realist Cap de Creus. This work is the concrete definition of a difficult-to-perceive feeling: the monster of sexuality, as precise as the landscape of his childhood, the rocks of Cap de Creus. We should emphasise the imposing presence of the crutches, to Dalí a symbol of death and resurrection.
• Basket of Bread: Bread has always been one of the oldest subjects of fetishism and obsession in Dalí's work being the elementary basis of continuity and sacred subsistence.
• Basket of Bread: Bread has always been one of the oldest subjects of fetishism and obsession in Dalí's work being the elementary basis of continuity and sacred subsistence.
• Galatea of the Spheres: a portrait of Gala Dalí made up of spheres. Interested in nuclear physics since the first atomic bomb explosions of August 1945, Dalí described the atom as his favourite food for thought.
• Dalí Seen from the Back Painting Gala from the Back Eternalized by Six Virtual Corneas Provisionally Reflected by Six Real Mirrors: Stereoscopic work, an example of the experiments that Dalí undertook in the seventies.
• The Swallow's Tail: This is the last oil painting that Dalí painted. He did it in the Castle of Púbol in 1983.

Dalí Theatre-Museum Mae West Room

From the stage you can access the first floor corridors around the courtyard that display Salvador Dalí paintings and pencil drawings. off this corridor are various rooms such as the popular Mae West room that contains a giant collage of the face of the American actress formed of components of a home interior such as a red sofa in the form of female lips. This room was especially created by Dalí for the museum. behind Mae West is a wall with peep holes on either side that look into what I could describe as a hmmmm. a bedroom? with hanging plants like a jungle.

Tip: When you are in the Mae west room there are steps leading up to a platform to view the whole room for the correct perspective to reveal the surrealist portrait.

Dalí Theatre-Museum Masterpiece Room

Taking the stairs up to the second floor reveals the same layout of a white narrow horseshoe shape corridor around the courtyard and stage filled with works by Antoni Pitxot preceded by an installation by Salvador Dalí. The stairs lead up to the third floor and the Rue Trajan corridor here contains more Salvador Dalí works as well as the Masterpiece Room containing part of the private art collection of Salvador Dalí including El Greco paintings, Marià Fortuny art, Modest Urgell, Ernest Meissonier, Marcel Duchamp, Gerard Dou and Impressions of Bouguereau by Dalí.

Dalí Theatre-Museum Palace of the Wind

Descend to the second floor and explore the left side of the theatre including Dalí's private chambers where he slept in the museum at the end of his life. This set of rooms is most know for the Palace of the Wind (El Palacio del Viento)with its giant ceiling fresco of a surrealist human with dancing feet facing the floor and the body looking up to the heavens. In the bedroom is wall art of a Salvador Dalí melting clock.

Also on this floor is the Poetry of America room containing the titular piece which an oil on canvas painting that Dalí made in in Monterrey, California, in 1943. The landscape is a mixture of the Empurdá plain, Cap de Creus and of the vast American deserts. At the end of the corridor is the Bramante’s Temple room (Sala Templete de Bramante) containing an art installation by Dalí.

Dalí Theatre-Museum Loggia rooms

Next on the route is the Loggia room housing Dalí's creative dialogue with Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660). It reveals Dalí's interest in Velázquez's timeless art. This leads in to the The tower of All the Enigmas room containing the titular oil on copper piece painted for the Vogue magazine cover in 1971.

It is from this space that you can access the Dalí's Theatre-Museum terrace garden and sit down a for a few minutes. The exit to the museum and the gift shop is after the garden and as you get to the exit turnstiles on the right is a staircase leading up to the Dalí Jewels Collection.

Dalí Theatre-Museum Jewels Collection

Tip: Do not go through the exit turnstile without first visiting the Jewels Collection.

The Dalí Theatre and Museum ticket includes access to the Dalí Jewels collection. This is a separate exhibition space that contains an exquisite blend of creativity and craftsmanship consisting of 39 gold jewels and precious stones of the Owen Cheatham collection based on design drawings by Salvador Dalí. Each jewellery item is accompanied by the Dalí design drawing.

Notable pieces are a lobster brooch with a pearl in its claw, a pair of earrings with Gala's portrait on them, and a necklace with a melting clock pendant. In addition to these pieces, the Salvador Dalí Jewels Collection also features a selection of jewellery boxes, watches, and other accessories designed by Dalí.

Dali Theatre Museum History

The origins of the Dali Museum are from the 60's when the mayor of Figures asked Dalí to donate a piece to the Museum of Emporada. Dalí decided to donate a whole museum instead!

The museum was a former municipal theatre that was reduced to a shell by a fire at the end of the Spanish civil war. The building had been reduced to it's outer stone walls with the ceiling of the orchestra pit collapsed, the stalls stone walls remained as well as the stone arch over the stage mouth. The entrance hall, and side stalls remained mostly intact after the fire.

From the 70's Dalí devoted his entire attention to the museum project, living in the theatre to complete the works and shape the distinct exhibition rooms. The Dalí Museum opened on 28th September 1974.

Dalí took advantage of the semi ruined theatre to craft a unique exhibition space for his works. Everything in the museum (except some pieces by artists that Dalí admired) was conceived and created by Dalí himself. The museum can be considered a surrealist work of art in itself and is unusual in that the artist has created and curated his own museum.

The Dalí theatre-Museum is the largest collection of his works.

Salvador Dalí died on the 23rd of January 1989 and in accordance with Dalí's wishes, he is buried inside his museum beneath the dome. This is also unusual because he is not entombed with his beloved wife Gala Dalí who is entombed at Púbol Castle.

Image Gallery for Figueres Theatre Museum Dalí

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Visiting Figueres Theatre Museum Dalí

The Theatre Dalí museum is very popular and I recommend booking the ticket in advance. Note: the early time slots in the morning are always the busiest and I advise choosing a 13:00h to 16:00h time slot because this is when people generally eat lunch in Catalonia so the museum is less busy.

Note: At the moment I cannot post any photos of the interior of the Figueres Dali Theatre museum but I am seeking rights clearance from the Dalí Foundation to include these photos. All I can say is that the Dalí Museum is a must visit attraction when visiting Barcelona and I can confirm that the famous Dalí melting clock painting is inside this museum.

Figures Theatre Dalí Museum opening hours

• Monday to Tuesday: 10:00h to 18:00h
• Closed: Mondays except some public holiday's

Admission up to 45 minutes before closing time.

I would allow two hours to fully explore the Dalí Museum and ticket prices start from 19 Euros, however I recommend the audio guide for its explanations of the works on display, many of them I cannot even put into words!.

As well as the museum gift shop, upon exiting the museum there is a surrealist bookshop and gift store in Plaça Gala i Salvador Dalí that sells items based on the designs of Salvador Dalí.

Getting to Figueres Theatre Museum Dalí

Address: Plaça Gala i Salvador Dalí 5, Figueres. 17600

Figueres can be reached via the REGIONAL train service which has a station in the centre of town. Figures is also served by the AVE high speed rail network which has a station on the outskirts of the town called Figures-Vilafant.

The Regional Trains start in Barcelona-sants, stopping at Barcelona-Passeig de Gracia, Girona and other station on the way to Girona. There are two types of Regional train the MD train which makes fewer stops and has more luxurious carriages with tables as well as being 20 minutes faster. The R11 Regional trains stop at every station on the way to Figueres.

The AVE trains take 50 minutes from barcelona-Sants to Figueres-Vilafant, a new station 20 minutes walk from the centre of town but near to Sant Ferran Fortress.

For a train map comparing all the routes from Barcelona or Girona to Figueres see the train map in the documents section.

If travelling to Figueres by car, there is Parking Saba El Garrigal directly behind Figueres Dali Museum in Carrer Canigo.

Documents for Figueres Theatre Museum Dalí

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Where to stay overnight in the Figueres Dali Museum Theatre