Dalí on the other hand immigrated to the US to sit out the war years and pursue a capitalist-style career. He lived in America from 1939 to 1948, where he became a master of exhibitionism and self-promotion. He was the darling of advertisers, who used him to sell every imaginable product. He worked for Disney and created a cinematic sequence for Alfred Hitchock's, Spellbound. His meticulously cultivated flamboyant persona and thoroughly orchestrated eccentricity guaranteed a public perception of him as the ultimate surrealist artist - it also brought him a personal fortune estimated at over $30 million dollars. Breton was not off the mark in bestowing upon Dalí the anagram of Avida Dollars ("Greedy for Dollars"), in fact Dalí was so venal when it came to wealth that he enthusiastically embraced
the anagram as a nickname.

But surrealist ire towards Dalí had less to do with his greed, and far more to do with his dubious political opinions. War and fascism were on Europe's horizon, and thesurrealists moved further to the left when the Nazis seized absolute power in 1933 and Germany began its decent into barbarism. Hitler initiated an unprecedented campaign of terror - civil rights were no more, artists and intellectuals began to flee the country, book burnings had begun, more than 25,000 communists, socialists, and Jews had been sent to concentration camps - and that was just the beginning.

Tensions developed within the surrealist group as Dalí evaded anti-fascist political ideas and actions and instead showed an obsessive interest in what he called the "Hitler phenomenon." As Dalí's infatuation with Hitler grew, he came under suspicion by his fellow surrealists.

While the surrealists and artists worldwide reacted to the outrages of fascism against the Spanish Republic, Dalí painted his Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (shown at the top of this essay). It was a work that many art critics have mistakenly construed as being "antiwar."

Commenting on the canvas, the Philadelphia Museum's promotional material states, "Though Dalí intended this painting as a comment on the horrors of the Spanish Civil War, he did not openly side with the Republic or with the fascist regime. In fact, the painting is one of only a few works by Dalí to deal with contemporary social or political issues. Unlike other Spanish modernists, including Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró, who used their art to make political statements in support of the Spanish Republic, Dalí preferred
to remain apolitical."

How could one not have taken sides when Mussolini's tanks and Hitler's air force assisted Franco's troops in extinguishing democracy in Spain? It is a fallacy to think Dalí "remained apolitical" while Spain was cut to ribbons by fascist bayonets. Silence sometimes masks complicity, but Dalí pledged his full and unwavering support for the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco. That pledge to Franco resulted in Dalí being thrown out of the surrealist movement for good, but his 1939 painting The Enigma of Hitler (which now hangs in the Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, Madrid) also contributed to his expulsion. Dalí had inserted a small portrait of Adolph Hitler in the barren surreal landscape.

The prior year had seen the whirlwind of anti-Semitic hatred known as Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) explode in Germany. Hundreds of Jewish synagogues were torched, thousands of Jewish businesses were looted, and 30,000 Jews were sent to the concentration camps of Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. Against that appalling backdrop Dali dared to portray Hitler as an "enigma." The surrealists could no longer put up with Dali's conduct and decided to expel what they considered a reactionary impostor from their ranks.

Eventually Dalí returned to Franco's Spain after the war, and it no doubt endlessly pleased the dictator to have the celebrated artist living and working there when few other well-known personalities would. Dalí announced his conversion to traditional Catholicism, and the sacred art he created in the 1950's became some of his most popular works worldwide. Long gone was Dalí the rebel anticleric, the scatological genius, the anarchistic surrealist.

But even his religious paintings, surreal Madonnas and crucifixion scenes, seemed tainted inasmuch as they were the type of artworks fully sanctioned by the fascists who lorded over Spain. After having overthrown the duly elected government, General Franco ran Spain with an iron fist until his death in 1975. The country's first democratic elections since 1936 were held two years after Franco's demise. Salvador Dalí passed away in 1989, at the age of 85.

I write these words not as a detractor of Dalí's works, but as someone opposed to the revisionism surrounding his history. To be honest, I still admire Dalí as an accomplished painter, and I find genius in the works he produced throughout his long career. But one must be honest about Dalí's considerable flaws in order to properly re-evaluate his contributions to art. The Philadelphia Museum does a disservice to its patrons and to history by asserting "Dalí never abandoned his Surrealist pursuits entirely."

Surrealism was always much more than a decorative fantasy art composed of bizarre landscapes filled with melting watches. It was a complete philosophical, political, and aesthetic program that by the late 30's had been entirely discarded by Dalí. The year 2004 was celebrated as the 100th anniversary of Salvador Dalí's birth. The chairman of Spain's Dali Year Commission stated in 2004 that if Pablo Picasso (who was a communist), received "international acclaim, then Dalí, who admittedly supported fascism in Spain, should receive his own homage." In light of such a statement, it is astonishing that the Philadelphia Museum of Art can still say that Dalí "preferred to remain apolitical."