A Court Ordered Dalí’s Exhumation. His DNA Is Still Held

A judge ordered Salvador Dalí’s tomb opened, and forensic workers cut both his legs at the knees to collect samples for a paternity test. The case found no biological relationship between Dalí and Pilar Abel, the fortune teller who claimed to be his daughter. But the remains and the genetic material they yielded have since become the subject of another contest: whether researchers should sequence Dalí’s genome.

A court order, a body, a laboratory

On the night of July 20, 2017, a team opened Dalí’s tomb beneath the dome of the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres. There was no solid evidence he had fathered Abel. The judge nevertheless ordered the exhumation and collection of samples. Nearly 30 years after his death, Dalí’s embalmed body still had its trademark mustache, its tips turned upward like the hands of a clock at 10:10.

The forensic team removed teeth, fingernails and hair, as well as cutting both legs at the knees. Half the samples went to the central headquarters of Spain’s National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences in Las Rozas; the rest went to its Barcelona branch for duplicate analyses. A cardboard box containing half of Dalí’s right leg travelled 435 miles from Figueres to geneticist Antonio Alonso’s laboratory in Las Rozas. The package also held three teeth, four fingernails and a lock of hair.

Alonso, former director of Spain’s National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences, said he considered the exhumation “an outrage.” He also said Dalí’s legs weren’t needed to obtain DNA: dental roots and a fingernail provided enough material. Dalí’s remains returned to the tomb in March 2018, but leftover DNA extracts remained in the institute’s custody indefinitely, Alonso said.

Who controls the remains?

Alonso now wants the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation to reconsider his proposal to sequence the artist’s entire genome. He first sent the proposal weeks after the exhumation in September 2017. The foundation rejected it, and the proposal wasn’t made public. Encouraged by a retrospective at the Thyssen Museum in Madrid showing Dalí’s interest in science and Freud’s psychoanalysis, Alonso is asking again.

“Since this outrageous act was carried out — cutting off his legs and sending them in a box — let us take advantage of what has already been done to extract added value,” he said. Alonso argued that DNA could offer clues about creativity, while stressing that genes weren’t the only influence: “Environmental factors such as education are also enormously important.” He also cited gene networks relevant to creativity and disorders related to personality, including paranoia and schizophrenia.

The foundation, established by Dalí during his lifetime, says it is “solely responsible” for his remains. It has studied his interest in genetics but continues to reject sequencing his DNA. “We understand that an initiative of this nature raises ethical, legal and scientific issues of special sensitivity that require the utmost prudence,” a spokesperson said. “For this reason, the Foundation does not contemplate promoting or supporting an initiative of this nature.”

A legacy disputed in public

Dalí, who died on January 23, 1989, called DNA “the memory of God.” In a 1971 interview, he described its transmission as “monarchically and genetically” ordained. His fascination appeared in the 1963 painting Galacidalacidesoxiribunucleicacid, which joined DNA with the biblical resurrection of Christ.

Art historian Jaime Brihuega, curator of the Thyssen exhibition and professor emeritus at the Complutense University of Madrid, believes Dalí would welcome the proposed analysis. “Dalí would surely love it,” he said, imagining the artist would see the research as setting his resurrection in motion. James Watson remembered the opposite divide: “When he said that the double helix proved the existence of God, he interpreted the double helix in his own way, whereas to me it was exactly the opposite: with the double helix you don’t need God.”

The court ordered the body opened; the laboratory retained extracts; the foundation says the decision belongs to it. Alonso’s proposal remains rejected. Dalí’s own line, recalled by Alonso, was that scientists gave him “everything, even the immortality of the soul.”