Salvador Dali's body to be exhumed in paternity suit

Salvador Dali's body to be exhumed in paternity suit

The body of the Spanish artist Salvador Dali is to be exhumed, possibly next month, in a paternity suit after a tarot card reader called Maria Pilar Abel Martínez has claimed that the painter was her father, having had an affair with her mother, a housemaid, in 1955.

Maria Pilar was born in 1956. The painter (also author, sculptor, photographer and film-maker), more famous for his work as a surrealist artist, had bequeathed his estate to the Spanish State, for which it is administered by the Dali Foundation, which has stated it intends to appeal the decision to exhume the body to take samples.

The decision to exhume the body was taken by a judge in Madrid, who claimed that there are no other samples available to test the claim. Dali died at the age of 85 in 1989.

Dali is buried in the theater-museum (photo) which he himself designed, and where he lived during his last years after the death of his wife, Gala.