The following content was first published in Golf Journal, a quarterly print and monthly digital publication exclusively for USGA Members. To be among the first to receive Golf Journal and to learn how you can help make golf more open for all, become a USGA Member today.
Among the USGA’s collection of fine art, a piece by the legendary Spanish painter Salvador Dali demonstrates the game’s close ties to culture, fashion and social history. Dali’s early works epitomized the Surrealist movement of the 1930s. He merged fantasy and reality, juxtaposed the bizarre and mundane, and conflated dreams with the everyday world. These Freudian self-explorations are demonstrated by Dali’s most famous painting, “Persistence of Memory” (1931), featuring melting clocks.
For the next 40 years, Dali remained prolific in his production of boundary-pushing art, films, books, costumes, jewelry and furniture. He continued to shock audiences with wild publicity stunts and cement his mustachioed image in popular memory through commercial endeavors.
Dali often did commissioned works, some of which featured sports as the subject matter. In 1968, Spain’s government agency for physical education and sports commissioned Dali to paint “The Cosmic Athlete,” in celebration of the country’s participation in the Mexico City Olympic Games. Dali’s relationship with golf is not particularly well-documented. However, during World War II, he and his wife, Gala, lived in golf-centric Pebble Beach, Calif.
“The Golfer” (1973), a color lithograph in the USGA Golf Museum and Library collections, depicts a shadowy golfer swinging a club amidst a sparse, palm tree-dotted landscape. It has a similar style to a few of Dali’s other depictions of athletes, such as a series of bullfighters from the 1960s and “Sport” (1972), of wrestlers.
Victoria Nenno is the USGA's senior historian.
