SALVADOR DALÍ
April 1966

Salvador Dalí never set foot in Richmond in April 1966, but Richmonders still felt his eccentric presence. Dalí sent his “military advisor,” Captain Peter Moore, along with his pet ocelot to present a proposal for a new statue on Monument Avenue. The statue, designed to honor Captain Sally Tompkins, the first American woman to serve as an Army officer during the Civil War, juxtaposed a petite dragon and a powerful, larger than life figure atop a twenty-foot model of Dalí’s pinky finger.

Reynolds Metals had commissioned the Dalí design as part of an effort to place a female hero on Monument Avenue. But General Edwin Conquest, a member of the City Committee, posed a prudent question, “Are we erecting a monument to Sally or Dali?” The debate fueled questions about the need for another white Confederate hero along Monument Avenue. Although the Captain Sally statute was dropped, to this day, a monument celebrating a woman still does not exist along Monument Avenue.

Captain Peter Moore, 1966, Courtesy of the Richmond Times-Dispatch; Bill Wynne, Sally Tompkins, 1966, Courtesy of the Virginia Historical Society