SALVADOR DALÍ
(Spanish 1904-1989)

Salvador Dalí Domenech was born in Figueras, Spain on May 11, 1904, the second son of the notary public Salvador Dalí Cusi and his wife Felipa Domenech Ferres. Salvador Dalí was named after his older brother who had died in August of 1903. The death was a circumstance, which Dalí said cast a permanent shadow over his life. He was enrolled in a municipal kindergarten and after two years attended the Colegio Hispano-Frances de la Immaculada Concepción, where he learned French. He spent six years there as a rather ordinary student.

During the summer of 1916, Dalí visited the family Pichot, who were interested in the arts. Ramon Antonio Pichot Gironès (1872-1925) was probably the artist's first role model as a painter. In 1917 Dalí's father organized an exhibition of his charcoal drawings in their family home. In 1918 a Dalí drawing was published in the Catalan magazine Patufet. His work was also noted in the local newspapers and in the magazine Studium. Eventually Dalí moved into a small studio previously used by Pichot because there was not enough room in his home to paint. In 1921 Dalí's mother died and his father quickly married her sister Catalina.

Beginning in 1919 Dalí enrolled in schools to further his artistic training. He began at the Instituto de Figueras and then applied and was accepted to Madrid’s Special School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving. In 1923 he was expelled from school for leading a student uprising over the school's failure to hire a particular instructor. During this time, Dalí was also arrested and held for more than a week because of his father's political activities. By the autumn of 1924 Dalí had returned to school.

The second half of 1925 Dalí exhibited ten paintings in the Salon in Madrid and fifteen paintings at his first one-man exhibition at the Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona. In 1926 Dalí refused to take the examination in "Fine Art Theory”, stating that the faculty was not qualified to examine him. This was the reason listed for his permanent expulsion from the school, though the records show that he had "made good use of his time while he was there."

In June of 1929 Dalí invited to his home a group of friends, among whom was the wife of Paul Eluard, Gala. When Paul left to return home, Gala stayed with Dalí. Eventually, Gala became his wife, his muse, and his inspiration. Among his other inspirations were the Cubist studies of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), filmmaker Luis Buñuel (1900-1983), and especially the landscape of Catalonia.

After experimenting with Cubism, Futurism, Purism, and Metaphysical Painting Dalí became one of the leading figures of the Surrealist movement around 1929. He used a new technique, which he called "paranoiac-critical activity". This activity was described by the artist as a "spontaneous method of irrational understanding based on the interpretative critical association of delirious phenomena”. The Oxford Companion to Art defines “paranoiac-critical activity” as "an attempt to make systematic use of the organizational force of hallucinatory and obsessive experience with special emphasis on multiple figuration". The two meanings slightly differ—the Oxford definition is more conservative.

In 1929 and 1930 Dalí made the first surrealistic movies with Buñuel. Though he considered himself a Surrealist Dalí’s classical style was rejected by André Breton and other more traditional Surrealists in 1937 and 1938. Between 1930 and the beginning of World War II Dalí exhibited regularly in Paris, including a one-man exhibit at the Galerie Pierra Colle where he first showed the 1930 artwork "Persistence of Memory”, which has become one of his most famous paintings. During this time a group of Parisian collectors, including Charles de Noailles, formed a consortium to regularly purchase Dalí's artwork.

Dalí and Gala made their first trip to the United States in 1934. The couple made it a practice to regularly visit New York every year until the war, generally during the winter. In 1940 Dalí and Gala fled during the German invasion of France and took refuge in the United States where they remained until 1948. While in the United States, Dalí capitalized on self-advertisement, bringing him great fame. A retrospective exhibition was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1941. In 1955 Dalí returned to Spain and settled at Cadaqués.

Salvador Dalí was one of the most diverse artists of the twentieth century. He designed stage settings, jewelry, clothing, perfume advertisements, sculpture, department store windows, fabric, hats, chess pieces, Perrier water and Lanvin chocolate advertisements, and he even worked on the animation for Walt Disney movies which were never finished. He also cooperated with Alfred Hitchcock on “Spellbound”.

Dalí is known for his numerous writings, including a surrealist work Babaoue (1932) as well as La Conqûete de L'Irrationel (1935), and his autobiographical La Vie Secrete de Salvador Dalí (1942). After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dalí entered what some call his Nuclear and Atomic periods. In the following years he became increasingly interested in biological, mathematical, nuclear, philosophical, and physical theories. By the 1950s he also began to focus on religious themes.

Dalí’s relationship with Gala was as volatile as his art. Though he adored her, his depictions of her in his art were dichotomous, leaving the viewer to wonder whether his feelings were adoring or hateful. They were married in a religious ceremony in Gerona, Spain in 1958. In 1970, when they became estranged, Dalí gave Gala the castle and agreed to limit his visits to her written requests. When she died in 1982, Dalí was devastated and had her interred at the castle in Pubol in a crypt he designed. Without her Dalí was lost and his painting career ended. He actually did only a few paintings and no prints after 1980.

The Salvador Dalí Museum, with the world's second largest collection of Dalí’s artworks, was inaugurated in Cleveland, Ohio in 1971. A dramatically expanded version replaced it some years later in St. Petersburg, Florida. In 1974 Dalí participated in the inauguration of the Teatro-Museo in Figueras. He designed it himself to house his works and the works of artists he admired. In 1984 Dalí was injured in a fire at the castle. After his release from the hospital he lived as a recluse in a room adjacent to his Teatro-Museo. When Dalí died on January 23, 1989 he was interred in his museum, surrounded by his art, which was his life.