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Spanish Judge Orders Salvador Dali’s Body Exhumed


Salvador Dali photographed by Irving Penn, New York,1947, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist. Copyright © The Irving Penn Foundation
Salvador Dali photographed by Irving Penn, New York,1947, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist. Copyright © The Irving Penn Foundation

A Spanish court has given permission for the remains of famed surrealist painter Salvador Dali to be exhumed as part of a paternity test.

The judge in Catalonia ruled the body will be dug up July 20.

A woman claims Dali was her father. She has given a saliva sample that will be used to compare her DNA with that of Dali’s.

Maria Pilar Abel, 61, alleges her mother and Dali had an affair in the fishing village where he lived.

Abel said she only wants to be recognized as the artist’s daughter and has no interest in collecting any money.

The Salvador Dali Foundation is appealing the exhumation order.

Dali, who died in 1989, is the world’s most renown surrealist painter. His picture melting watches, The Persistence of Memory, is an icon of surrealism.

He is also known for a long pencil-thin moustache and eccentric behavior.

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