The story
The Morohashi Museum of Modern Art stands in the Urabandai highlands of Fukushima, a short walk from the Goshiki-numa ponds, which formed after the volcano Mount Bandai erupted in 1888. It is an unexpected place to meet Salvador Dalí, yet around 340 of his works are here, one of the largest Dalí holdings anywhere and described as the only museum devoted to him in Asia.
They were gathered by Teizo Morohashi, founder of the sports retailer Xebio, who began buying Dalí in 1991 and opened the museum in June 1999. The range runs from Cabaret Scene, painted in 1922 when Dalí was 18, to The Battle of Tetuan, a vast canvas from 1962, with dozens of sculptures besides, including a version of his melting watch in bronze. Some 40 Impressionist and Post-Impressionist pictures hang alongside, among them works by Renoir, Cézanne and van Gogh. The museum shuts through the snowy months, from late autumn until April.
