Tale of devotion to Dalí turns up another fanatic

I knew you would see right through my literary devices.

My recent column about the annual AAUW book fair had little to do with books, the fair or the American Association of University Women that sponsored it.

The book fair provided what we writers call a "hook;" like a hook on a wall, it's a conveniently relevant topic on which to hang an unrelated topic that the writer really wants to write about.

My hook in this case was a book about Salvador Dalí. My topic was a personal tale about my family's brush (pun intended) with the celebrated surrealist. My children's maternal great-grandfather, William Gardner, built and briefly owned Dalí's "Dream of Venus" pavilion at the 1939 World Fair in New York City; when the fair ended, Gardner's wife, Mae Gardner, burned every trace of the exhibit - and, woefully, my children's inheritance.

My story had nothing to do with Lima, Ohio. Or so I thought, until my phone rang the day after it appeared in print.

The caller, Shawnee Township resident Richard "Dick" Minck, turns out to be more of a Dalí fanatic than I am.

Minck and his wife, the former Helen Farmer, also of Shawnee, spend their winters in St. Petersburg, Fla., where they have been avid supporters of the Salvador Dalí Museum for many years. The world-renowned museum and gallery features a collection of several hundred Dalí originals worth more than the New York Yankees' annual payroll. Their son, Thomas James, happens to be the chairman of the the Dalí Museum's board of directors.

For more than 30 years, Minck has been a player in the Lima arts scene. He taught Lima Art Association classes in pottery and jewelry design in the late 1970s, and he made regular television appearances to promote the area's art offerings. He's won a number of first-place awards in The Lima News annual photo contest. A stunning collection of his photographs was on exhibit all summer at Artspace Lima.

The Mincks are prominent patrons of the arts in the Tampa Bay area. They support a number of institutions, most notably the Florida Orchestra. Dick Minck is known for a unique form of artistic expression: Tuxedo shirts are his canvas of choice. He attends cultural affairs dressed in his painted tux shirts, many of which he donates to be auctioned for charity.

Minck alerted me to the Dalí Museum's Ohio roots. The museum's founders, Cleveland industrialist A. Reynolds Morse and his wife, Eleanor Reese Morse, bought their first Dalí painting in 1943 and and struck up a lifelong friendship with Dalí and his wife, Gala. They frequently vacationed together. As the Morse collection of Dalí paintings grew, they began searching for a permanent home for it, St. Petersburg offered one. The collection moved to Florida in 1980. Dalí lived his final years in an upstairs apartment over the original museum.

The Dalí Museum has grown to be recognized as the crown jewel of cultural attractions on Florida's Gulf Coast. Construction began this fall on a new home for the museum on St. Pete's waterfront. The multimillion-dollar, hurricane-resistant structure will provide space and security for its breathtaking collection. It's slated to open in 2010.

Minck said he and his wife traveled to Europe with the Morses a few years ago to visit Dalí's haunts and arts residing there. Reynolds Morse died in 2000.

It was a treat for me to meet Minck and share stories. He said he owns a Dalí original: a metallic-finish chair, designed and made in the late 1930s, which looks very much like a chair you'd imagine Dalí might design.

But When Minck e-mailed me a picture of the chair the next day, his attached message jolted me just a bit. "I added the legs knowing that Dalí would have approved."

I wondered, did he somehow mar a priceless original? Did he add arms to a Venus de Milo, or a mustache to a Mona Lisa?

Then I opened the photo and had a good laugh. Sitting on the chair were the glittered legs and lower torso of a mannequin, so typical of one of Dalí's earlier collage pieces.

I guess artists, like writers, have devices of their own.