In addition to full fledge museums like the one in Figueres and Florida, Dalinian manifestations range from exhibitions, books, and posters neckties, watches, and even deodorant. Now this highly lucrative legacy is at the heart of a court battle between the Gala Salvador Dali Foundation, which runs the Theater Museum and two other sites in Spain, and the French Photographer, who was Dali secretary at the end of the artist life and is considered a leading authority on him. At issue is Descharnes claim of ownership of worldwide Dali merchandising rights, from which his Netherlands - based company, Demart Pro Arte, has earned millions of dollars over the past 15 years.

After more than six years of feuding, the foundation and Demart are emished in litigation - Now active on both sides of the Atlantic -- to determine once and for all who owns the rights to Dali royalties estimated to be worth more than $4 million a year.(Demart earns income from a French perfume maker, for example, whose newest Dali scent is expected to bring in $ million of wholesale revenue in the first year. So high are the stakes that the Gala Salvador Dali Foundation has set up its own product committee to create new, exclusive merchandise.) In 1996 Demart filed an action in Madrid to overturn the ruling giving unconditional rights back to the foundation.

Demart's action, however was rejected in 1997 an again on appeal in July 1999. The Foundation,meanwhile,filed its own suit in 1998 in New Brunswick,Canada,to revoke the Canadian - based parent trust of Demart. In an initial June 1999 decision, The New Brunswick court declined to revoke the trust, but the final ruling is still pending.

Catalan leaders,meanwhile,were stunned that the artist had largely written off his home region, and the foundation was left in a weak position. But the foundation did become the designated beneficiary of the New Brunswick trust and hence of revenues earned by Demart. According to its founding deed, the trust holds property-now including the shares of Demart - for its beneficiary. Thus, the foundation's managers assumed that any income generated through Demart would be immediately turned over to the foundation of which Distrains is a life time trustee. But Detrains claimed that most of its revenues were used to pay operating cost and did not pay the foundation. In 1991 the foundation's appointment of Ramona Boixados,a former head of national railways, as its new president brought tensions between the institution and Demart to the surface. Boixados began a program to put the struggling foundation on an efficient business footing, and the board quickly came into conflict with Descharnes over Demart. Boixados declined to comment to Artnews while litigation between the foundation and Demart is ongoing.

"We have never given any money to the foundation, and never had any obligation to do so,"Says Descharnes. "We did try to work togeather,to establish a contract between Demart and the foundation, but we always ran up against obstacles on their side. almost all the money Demart has received was spent on taking out and maintaining trademarks, on fighting forgeries, and on lawyers fees, " He add. " Why give money to people who have behaved like brigands and who are out to murder us? We have traveled the world,fufilling our role, which is the protection of Dali's work."

Descharnes respondent to these developments with a battery of litigation. Immediately after the Spanish government's ruling, he filed an action before the national administrative court (Audiencia National) in Madrid, seeking to block it. In February the court granted a stay.

ENJOY! JOSEPH R. CARMICHAEL PRES. - WWW.FAMEARTIST.COM