He made friends with Dahli before the purchase was made.They had met in London previously, where Dahli turned up dressed in an diving suit (the old type with the round helmet) They struck up a close friendship, the reason Honeyman was offered the painting first.Your correct with the title, the name i wasn't sure about when i posted.It now has an purpose built viewing room.

@Coldo I suspect, as is the case with so many incidents and aspects on Dali's life, there may well be more than one version of when and how they met, as Dali did rather like to obfuscate the truth. They may well have been acquainted with one another since the International Exhibition of Surrealism in London (where Dali wore the diving helmet and nearly asphyxiated ) but I don't recall ever reading of them being friends [bbc.co.uk]. It also appears that the painting already had a catalogue list price of £12,000, which proves it had been up for sale before Honeyman bought it rather than being offered first to him - my guess would be that, as the painting is so radically different to the crucifixions that came before it, selling it in such a staid time the 1950s proved a hard task so Dali, who was a man as famous for his love of money as for his art and in no doubt at all of his talent, very unusually decided to knock a third off the price. Honeyman wisely snapped it up and shrewdly nabbed the copyright too; it was only later, when Dali heard how spirited Honeyman had been in justifying the purchase to his bosses, that they became friends.

@Jnei Both Dahli & Honeyman have commented on their friendship before the purchase.The story is well documented & can been seen in the Art Galleries.

@Coldo Perhaps, then, they became closer following the purchase - I've never seen anything mentioning them being any more than acquaintances prior to the purchase; however, Dali had a long career and did a lot of things within it, it's entirely possible I overlooked it.

@Jnei They first met in 1936,for some reason they hit it off at the time.As i said the story of their first meeting & the friendship that followed can be seen (with pictures in most cases) at the art gallery's

@Coldo The famous International Exhibition! I wonder if the person who sold him the helmet ever realised who he was?

@Jnei I don't think so! I know he bought it on a whim, somewhere in the south east of England.

@Coldo You can imagine him getting home that night and telling his wife... "I had this foreigner with a really strange moustache in the shop today, Muriel - said he needed a diving helmet to plumb the depths of the subconscious, or something like that. Right funny bugger, he were. What's for dinner?"

@Jnei Lol,can just picture it! ???