Conservation and restoration

Preventive conservation

The Foundation museums’ collections include a vast array of object types. Dalí’s works and legacy are moreover famously singular. The result is a profusion of highly diverse installations created using a wide range of techniques and materials, whose conservation poses an exceptional challenge for conservators and restorers. Additionally, the unusual nature of the architectural and museum spaces – the former theatre in Figueres or the compact spaces of the repurposed fisherman’s huts in Portlligat – means that specific environmental control strategies and solutions are required for each case.

Preventive conservation comprises a series of measures and tasks aimed at minimizing alterations to works caused by ageing of the materials over time or by external factors, such as handling, in order to prevent future damage and deterioration and, thus, the need for restoration. Accordingly, the restorers’ work is focused on prevention programmes, defining exhibition systems and materials, addressing storage and transport issues, and supervising the packing and movement of works.

Restoration interventions

Despite the strong conservation and prevention policy, some works will inevitably deteriorate and need to be restored. The conservation and restoration tasks are performed according to pre-established protocols and a schedule of priorities determined by various parameters, such as loan requests for temporary exhibitions.

This includes the collections of paintings, original drawings and graphic works on paper, as well as the extraordinary variety of sculptures, artistic installations and objects, created with materials as varied as wood, metal, ceramic, plastic, taxidermies, fabric and fibreglass.

The department also carries out conservation and restoration treatments for the extensive collection of documents held by the Centre for Dalinian Studies, which includes photographs, manuscripts, magazines and books, among other items.

Projects and research

Research and documentation work, technical reports and the study of Salvador Dalí’s technique are all undertaken with the same aim of furthering knowledge of the artistic procedures and materials the artist used. This knowledge lays the foundation for the department’s work, as well as for the consulting services it provides to the Foundation’s other areas and projects and in response to the various external requests received, as well as to the Authorization and Authentication Committee and for the online catalogues raisonnés of the different collections published by the Centre for Dalinian Studies. To this end, the department carries out various research projects in collaboration with other institutions and their scientific laboratories.