AAUW Book Fair treasure stirs sadly surreal tale

Lima's book lovers won't want to miss the AAUW Book Fair, which began Tuesday and continues through Saturday at Lima Center, between Jo Ann Fabrics and the Scrapbook Store. The selection will be vast, varied and affordable. Proceeds fund scholarships through the local American Association of University Women - a great deal for everyone!

You won't find one book there, however. My friend Susie-Q, a longtime AAUW member, spotted a copy of "Dalí: The Paintings" and put it aside for me. It's tremendous! Images of hundreds of Salvador Dalí originals cram this 780-page retrospective, arranged chronologically by authors Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret to document the Spanish surrealist's career from 1910 until his death in 1989.

The object of my Dalí obsession is mentioned only briefly, however. A family secret explains why Dalí books - and my children's inheritance - are not as fat as they might have been.

Dalí's reputation preceded his 1939 arrival in New York. He "was delighted to find that everyone was trying to imitate him," the text of my new book points out. He launched a number of promotions, including an exhibit at the 1939 World Fair. Dalí partnered with William Gardner, a Pittsburgh entrepreneur, to create Dalí's "Dream of Venus." Art historians still call it the greatest fun house ever conceived. Others called it a massive burlesque show.

Dalí's contract gave him essentially a blank check to create whatever he wanted; Gardner would finance and build the pavilion to Dalí's specifications; they would split the gate; and all materials, models and drawings would become Gardner's property afterward.

The exhibit's focal point was a huge, glass aquarium inhabited by mermaids - long-haired, topless models wearing rubberized "fish-tail" costumes of Dalí's design. The mermaid effect was beautiful to behold, according to an eyewitness who described it to me.

The partnership wasn't so lovely. Dalí's incessant change orders slowed the project. Expenses piled up. Deadlines loomed. Gardner, an advertising man, suggested faster and cheaper methods - suggestions the aftist flatly rejected. Dalí wrote in his memoirs how "explanations and letters of protest that my secretary typed every evening to the point of exhaustion were becoming more and more ineffective."

The mermaid tails became the deal breaker. They were too heavy; they didn't float. The models sank. Dalí had made himself unavailable, so Gardner redesigned the mermaid tails, making them smaller and more buoyant. It was no small decision: Each one cost 10,000 Depression-era dollars, and there were 20 of them, custom made for each of the hired models.

Dalí soon returned, armed with large scissors and loaded with indignation. He cut up a mermaid tail. The rash act pushed Gardner over the brink. He punched Dalí in the nose, picked him up and threw him into the fish tank. Dalí surfaced, sputtering, and Gardner declared, "No more changes - at all!"

The rest is a widely known. Dalí boycotted his own show. He published and distributed a protest pamphlet, "Declaration of the Independence of the Imagination and the Rights of Man to His Own Madness." The pamphlet detailed Dalí's growing bitterness over Americans' intent on exploiting Dalí's popularity to make a fast buck.

The exhibit opened three weeks late. My witness - Gardner's daughter Helen Gardner, who was 7 at the time - told me that it was a profitable show.

And now, the painful little secret: When the World Fair closed, the dismantled exhibit returned to Gardner's studio and warehouse in Pittsburgh. Art historians lament over how precious little remains of "Dream of Venus." They don't know my secret. Helen Gardner told me. Her mother, Mae, who was William Gardner's business partner, stacked all those Dalí originals in the alley alongside their warehouse and burned them. Mae herself lit the match.

"And she never regretted it," Helen said. She insists it's all true. I have to take her word for it; after all, she's my children's maternal grandmother.