For the first time in America, a series of Salvador Dalí sketches from the 1970s will be on display.
Peg’s Foundation & Gallery in Hudson, in collaboration with Kent State University’s School of Fashion, will display the sketches beginning June 12. The exhibit will also include student-designed pieces inspired by Dalí’s work.
The 12 pieces from 1971 were commissioned by European fabric maker Scabal. The directive was to imagine what fashion might look like in the year 2000.
“They're surreal, abstract and it's classic Dalí,” said Peg’s Foundation CEO Rick Kellar.
That could also be said of the pieces on view from juniors in KSU’s fashion program. They worked from the same prompt given to the surreal master: Imagine fashion 30 years into the future. Designs from 33 students round out “Dalí Beyond Time: Fashioning the Future.”
“I can promise the audience that none of the looks will look like something that you would find in a retail store or on the market,” said Mourad Krifa, the Margaret Clark Morgan director of the school. “Imaginative, surreal, otherworldly, futuristic.”
Kellar said there’s immense value in having modern-day students inspired by a legend like Dalí, who died in 1989.
“They'll go as far as you'll let them go and sometimes, we have to trust them,” Kellar said. “You learn that you may not like it, but you’ve got to understand it.”
The show came together last fall through a Kent fashion grad working with Scabal. Krifa said that's indicative of the industry connections that students make while at KSU.
“Our location in Northeast Ohio gives us some humility,” Krifa said. “The opportunities they get here lead them to become leaders in the industry.”
The full exhibition is on view through July 5, when a portíion of the paintings will move to New York City. The remainder of the pieces will remain in Hudson through Sept. 27.
