I recently saw an advertising poster for the new Guillermo Del Toro movie “Frankenstein” and thought it looked familiar. Certainly the pose does.

If you are from or have ever visited the dear green place Glasgow, you will immediately recognise it as the Salvador Dali painting “Christ of Saint John of the Cross” which is displayed in that august institute the Kelvingrove  Art Gallery and Museum in the West End.

One of many treats as a child would be to visit this Edwardian Spanish Baroque wonderland with it’s 22 galleries. Free entry to boot!

My favourites were the stuffed animals, insects impaled on boards in neat rows and the suits of armour. There was even a life sized diorama of the ice age with woolly mammoths if memory serves me right.

Most of the paintings left me for cold. I wasn’t a great admirer of the “Glasgow Boys” at that stage. Before we left we always made a beeline for the Dali. Even as a young child the vision hit you. Not in a cabaret magician “ta-dah” reveal but in a heavenly choir chorus goosebumps up and down your spine “Aaah !” way. It was so imposing and enormous to me then although it is only just over six foot tall. It was awe inspiring in the days when that phrase meant something.

 It was painted in 1951 and based on a drawing by 16^th century Spanish friar Saint John of the Cross. Apparently Dali had a stuntman suspended from an overhead gantry in his studio to get the angle right. Although a depiction of the crucifixion, it is devoid of any nails, blood and crown of thorns. All part of a dream that came to Dali. Not a melting clock in sight, just a fisherman and his boat at the bottom of the frame.

In 1952 the painting and intellectual property rights were acquired for Glasgow Corporation by Tom Honeyman, the Director of Glasgow Museums. It cost £8,200, a price considered high at the time. That certainly enraged some students at the Glasgow School of Art who thought the money should be better spent on local artists. It was considerably less than the £12,000 catalogue price and included the copyright. I have no doubt Glasgow Museums has recouped that cost many times over. I’m sure I bought a postcard of it sometime in the eighties when I lived in nearby Yorkhill – and probably bought a Glasgow’s Miles Better mug at the same time!

I wonder if Senor Del Toro had to fork out for his poster ?

If you are in the area, which I haven’t been for nearly 40 years, the gallery is certainly  worthwhile visiting. And if you like your pictures moving and have two and a half hours to spare check out “Frankenstein”.

(Post by John Allan from Bridgetown, Western Australia – November 2025)