University at Buffalo (UB)
Salvador Dali features the Dr. and Mrs. Edmund Klein Collection of Drawings and works from UB and the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University. This first public exhibition of the Dr. and Mrs. Edmund Klein Collection is in honor of the 20th anniversary of Salvador Dali’s death. Seeking medical treatment from the world’s expert for skin cancer, the world-renowned Spanish surrealist’s manager called the Klein family home to speak with Dr. Edmund Klein, who was associated with the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and chief of dermatology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. For nearly a decade, beginning in 1972, the year he won the coveted Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research for his outstanding contributions to the treatment of skin cancer, Klein met with his patient in New York City, France, and on Spain’s Costa Brava.
The close friendship that developed between doctor and artist is evidenced by the personal notations that accompany each drawing and sketch made during their meetings in books brought by Dali as gifts or on available sketchpads and sheets of paper. Given Dali’s belief that protons and neutrons to be “angelic elements” and DNA as the ultimate proof of God and God as the “substance in nuclear physics,” one can only imagine the lively dialogue shared by the artist and scientist.
The exhibition also will feature two Dali paintings from the UB Collection: Portrait of Katharine Cornell and Labyrinth, as well as several works of art on loan from Niagara University’s Castellani Art Museum.