"You messed up my painting!", "I'm so ashamed...NOT!"
In 1974, a Dali painting was stolen from the Knoedler Gallery in New York. In 1999 it was found in his assistant’s art gallery in Port Lligat, Spain.
John Peter Moore had been Dali’s closest assistant for over 20 years. They had met in Rome when Moore arranged payment for a portrait of Sir Lawrence Olivier that Dali painted. Moore became Dali’s personal secretary until Dali’s death from heart failure in 1989.
The painting stolen was The Double Image of Gala, which Dali painted in 1969. The subject was his wife, who sat for many of his paintings. When police found the painting it had been drastically cropped and renamed Dali Painting Gala. Moore’s house was searched further, producing 10,000 faked Dali lithographs.
Taking into consideration Moore’s advanced age and his senility, the Spanish courts never charged Moore for dealing in stolen art. He and his wife, however, were made to pay 1.2 million dollars to the Dali-Gala Foundation which oversees Dali’s heritage, and to pay for the restoration of the The Double Image of Gala.
Moore died in December of 2005 at the age of 86.
