The sculptor Arno Breker making preliminary drawings for the only authentic bust of the 'King of Surrealists', his friend Salvador Dali.
The European Art Foundation honors the Americans A. Reynolds Morse and his wife Eleanor Morse in acknowledgment and appreciation of their merits for European art.
As collectors of the works of Dali, both have created an exemplary cultural bridge between Europe and USA. This work is also in agreement with the work of our Foundation.
A. Reynolds Morse and Eleanor Reese gave themselves as present their first Dali painting on their wedding day on March 21, 1942. It was titled "Daddy Longlegs in the Evening - Hope", an oil painting from 1940.
As Morse related to Joe F. Bodenstein, an art collector and co-founder of the European Art Foundation, the Morse couple met Salvador Dali and Gala for the first time in 1943 in New York. From this first love for the work and for the master developed a life-long activity as art collectors. In their time, they became the largest private Dali collectors in the world.
Finally, the Morses made their collection available to the public through the present Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The couple A. Reynolds Morse and Eleanor Morse can be compared with the German art patrons Prof. Peter Ludwig and his wife, Prof. Irene Ludwig. This couple has put together the largest private collection in the world of old and contemporary art. In the Ludwig Museum in Köln, there is among other works from their collection Dali's famous painting "The Railway Station of Perpignan."
Professor Ludwig was very closely associated with the European Art Foundation.
It is hoped, that the Morse and Ludwig couples will serve as examples for future collectors and patrons of European art in the 20th and 21st centuries, an art which especially unites Europe with the United States and the whole North American continent.