The seventies came to an end. I took off again into the world of the
unknown of mythology with the painting Temptation of the
Unknown (1980). It was a time of reflection: of going back to the past, of dreaming of a
new future.
I learned that Pierre Théberge had included me in the
historical archives of the National Museum of Ottawa, and later Palma Bucarelli had done the same
thing for the archives of the National Gallery in Rome.
The Butterfly began to appear
in my canvases, the symbol of eternal beauty, the eternal victim of time, and the
cloud returned to enrich the mystery of the infinite.
I received an invitation to the opening of the Dalí
Museum in St. Petersburg from Reynolds and Eleanor Morse. So on the 7th of March 1982 I was in
Florida to celebrate an important event in the cultural life of the United States: a new
Dalí Museum. The exhibition opened new vistas to me, the years had ripened the artist of
Ulysses' Dream (1981).
In the autumn of 1984 the Morses came to Canada for a visit. One
evening we got together to chat in my studio. Mr. Morse, who in 1971 had linked me with the
surrealists of Northern Europe and in 1982 had considered me as one of the Dalí school,
finally defined my art as what I hope it is: "Cusimanian".
Joseph Cusimano
