Solicitors pursue firms that failed to mind Dalí copyright

Pride of place: Salvador Dalí’s Christ of St John of the Cross at Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow GLASGOW MUSEUMS

Pride of place: Salvador Dalí’s Christ of St John of the Cross at Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow GLASGOW MUSEUMS

PIRATE COPIES of Salvador Dalí’s Christ of St John of the Cross, painted in 1951, may have cost Glasgow City Council up to a six-figure sum in lost revenue. The city bought the paint­ing and its copyright in 1952.

Scores of people phoned the council to report possible breaches of copyright after it was made public that the council had employed lawyers to chase companies that had reproduced the picture without paying.

“It’s partly about the revenue it generates for us, but there is also a degree of protectionism about this: we don’t want the image being used on ashtrays and fridge magnets and the like,” a spokesman for the council said on Wednesday.

The huge painting, valued at about £60 million, is permanently on show in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow. In 1952, the painting and its copyright were sold by Dalí to Tom Honeyman, then director of the gallery, for £8200. There were protests that the money should have been spent on the city’s student artists, although it had been bought using a special art fund.

The picture was regarded as retrogressive, because of its ultra-realist style. Inspired by a pen-and-ink drawing by St John of the Cross (1542-91), a Spanish Carmelite mystic, Dalí depicted Jesus on the cross seen from above, looking down on the rocky harbour of Dalí’s home village of Port Ligat in Spain.

In 1961, a mentally disturbed visitor attacked and tore the canvas, which has since been restored. In the 1980s, someone shot at it with an airgun, but by then it had been protected by a Perspex cover.

A Glasgow solicitor, Colin Hulme, whose firm was called in to chase up unpaid fees, said that the council could be owed tens of thousands of pounds, “up to six figures”. “We are not pursuing any cathedral shops,” he said; nor any religious organisations “per se”.

"We are focussing on organisations that are the retailers of religious items. We are looking at the biggest sellers and are in contact with them. They will supply their suppliers' names and we will work through that. We will look at the past sales that were in breach of copyright and then consider future sales."

The copyright had decades to run, he said. "You will never stop copyright breaches worldwide, but if we can deal with 90 per cent of the breaches of copyright we would be doing well."

One parishoner had contacted the firm, worried that giving a copy to a church had been illegal. "It is not illegal to receive a picture as a gift, even if the gift is in breach of copyright. But whether it is moral to do so, I would not like to say," Mr Hulme said.

James Sanders, who manages the Dalí Universe, London, where the famous image is on exhibition as a gold sculpture valued at £50,000 said that 20 years after Dali's deatjh in January 1989, the artist was still a contraversial figure. "Dalí had a very Catholic upbringing and he became more fervently Catholic before his death," Mr Sanders said.

An event, "Courting Controversy: Dali's Depictions of Christ, is to be held at the Dali Universe, County Hall Gallery, Riverside Building, London SE1, on Monday, 9 March at 7pm.

Details from James Sanders on 020 7450 7603 or email james@thedaliuniverse.com