![\"persistence1.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/persistence1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Persistence of Memory (1931).<\/em><\/p>\n Forensic scientist uses DNA to explore Dal\u00ed’s bizarre genius<\/strong> James Randerson in San Antonio IT IS LIKE something from a surrealist still life\u2014a hat, glasses, moustache and toilet seat. This is the collection of belongings that forensic scientist Michael Rieders was offered when he put the word out that he was trying to track down Salvador Dal\u00ed’s DNA.<\/p>\n “I have been fascinated by Dal\u00ed and his artwork since I was around 11 years old,” he said. “I found it hard to believe that a person could come up with such exotic, bizarre art.”<\/p>\n By tracking down Dal\u00ed’s DNA he felt he could get closer to the surrealist artist. But more than that, he hoped that if he could characterise Dal\u00ed’s DNA fingerprint, he could use it to help authenticate the handful of paintings and artworks that are not signed but are claimed by some to have been painted by the Spanish master.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dal\u00ed’s DNA might even hold clues to the man’s creative genius. “He was just a machine of creativity at all levels,” said Bruce Hochman, director of the Dal\u00ed Gallery in San Juan, California. “Not only was he a great painter, he could work in any medium.” Dal\u00ed also designed jewellery, designed sets for Disney, wrote and starred in an opera and was an accomplished draughtsman.<\/p>\n When the “Dal\u00ed universe”, as Dr Rieders calls it, began offering to sell him objects to test for DNA he suspected most respondents were opportunists. But then he was given an unmissable chance of getting close to Dal\u00ed’s DNA.<\/p>\n Mr Hochman put Dr Rieders in touch with two of Dal\u00ed’s closest friends, Robert and Nicolas Descharnes. They had kept two nasal tubes nurses had used to feed the painter when he was recovering from a fire in 1984. The blaze, which was started by an electrical fault at his castle in Pubol, France, left Dal\u00ed with second degree burns on his leg and burns to his throat from breathing in the hot smoke.<\/p>\n “I’m not 100% sure why (they kept them),” said Dr Rieders, a toxicologist and lab director at NMS Labs in Willow Grove, Philadelphia, “but I now had an artefact that I was reasonably sure would contain some of Dal\u00ed’s DNA.”<\/p>\n The Descharnes, renowned authenticators of Dal\u00ed’s work, had stored the tubes in sealed envelopes signed and dated by Dal\u00ed’s doctor and nurse.<\/p>\n Dr Rieders told the annual meeting of the Academy of Forensic Sciences in San Antonio, Texas, that his team took swabs from 19 different places on the outside of the tubes. The profiles\u2014which included DNA markers at 16 different sites on the chromosomes\u2014all pointed in the same direction. “They all ended up coming back to a single male individual. This was a good sign,” he said.<\/p>\n The next step is what to do with the DNA. “Let’s be clear about this. I have no intention of creating a cloned army of surrealist artists,” said Dr Rieders, who sported a melting clock tie in honour of one of Dal\u00ed’s most famous images.<\/p>\n The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1952?54).<\/em><\/p>\n One priority is to preserve the DNA for future testing. The team have offered one sample of the DNA to the Dal\u00ed Foundation in Spain, one to the Dal\u00ed Museum in St Petersburg, Florida, and one to the Forensic Archaeo-Toxicology Institute, an organisation that retains DNA samples from significant cases. “We want to make sure that if a catastrophe should happen in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, we won’t lose the chance of having Dal\u00ed’s DNA,” said Dr Rieders. Dal\u00ed died in 1989 leaving no descendants.<\/p>\n One possibility would be to study Dal\u00ed’s DNA for clues to his artistic genius. Perhaps he had a mild form of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder which fuelled his creativity.<\/p>\n “Dal\u00ed collectors will want to use the DNA profile to help establish whether the huge amounts of supposed Dal\u00ed paraphernalia that exists is real. There are many Dal\u00ed objects out there, some on eBay, that are claimed to have been in the possession of Dal\u00ed,” said Dr Rieders.<\/p>\n “We now have the art world very interested in using this Dal\u00ed DNA reference as a way of looking to see if some of the other objects and artwork out there could perhaps be Dal\u00ed’s.”<\/p>\n One piece in particular, a small watercolour called The Snail and the Angel<\/em>, has a brown stain on it that is supposedly Dal\u00ed’s semen. The authenticity of that painting is not in doubt, but Dr Rieders thinks it would be a good place to start to try out the DNA fingerprint.<\/p>\n Previously on { feuilleton } The Persistence of Memory (1931). Forensic scientist uses DNA to explore Dal\u00ed’s bizarre genius Samples taken from nasal feeding tubes could also help to authenticate works James Randerson in San Antonio The Guardian, Saturday, February 24, 2007 IT IS LIKE something from a surrealist still life\u2014a hat, glasses, moustache and toilet seat. This is the … Continue reading “The persistence of DNA”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,44,13,18],"tags":[1511,1478,569,87],"class_list":["post-1531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-painting","category-science","category-surrealism","tag-edward-james","tag-igor-wakhevitch","tag-nasa","tag-salvador-dali"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-oH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSamples taken from nasal feeding tubes could also help to authenticate works<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThe Guardian<\/a>, Saturday, February 24, 2007<\/p>\n![\"persistence2.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/persistence2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Salvador Dal\u00ed\u2019s apocalyptic happening<\/a>
\n\u2022 The music of Igor Wakh\u00e9vitch<\/a>
\n\u2022 Dal\u00ed Atomicus<\/a>
\n\u2022 Las Pozas and Edward James<\/a>
\n\u2022 Impressions de la Haute Mongolie<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"