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Salvador Dali was born on March 11, 1904 in Figures in
Spain and died on January 23, 1989 in the place of his birth. He
was the son of a strict, lawyer father who’s heavy handed
discipline was balanced with a mother who actively encouraged her
sons drawing prowess.
He studied as an art student in both Madrid and Barcelona, and
it was during this time, he absorbed an impressive amount of differing
artistic styles and he displayed an unusual technical ability as
a painter. Salvador Dali attended Municipal Drawing School to receive
formal training and, on a holiday with a local artist, he first
discovered modern painting.
In 1921, his mother died of cancer when he was only 16. After
her death, Dali’s father married his dead wife’s sister.
This was a marriage which Dali resented.
Soon after this, Dali moved to Madrid to study art at the Academia
de San Fernando. It was here that Dali started to be recognised
for his eccentric appearance – he had long hair, sideburns
and a dress sense that was fashionable more than 100 years earlier.
Apart form his appearance - it was his interpretation of Cubism
that was starting to make people take notice of him.
Towards the end of the 1920’s Dali discovered Sigmund Freud’s
teachings on the erotic significance of the subconscious imagery
and he also began an affiliation with the Surrealist movement in
Paris. This was a group of artists and writers who sought to establish “the
greater reality” of man’s subconscious over his reason.
To bring up images from his subconscious mind, Dalí began
to induce hallucinatory states in himself by a process he described
as “paranoiac critical.”
After discovering this method, Dali’s painting style matured
with incredible speed, and, between the years 1929 to 1937, he
produced the world famous paintings that made him the world's best-known
Surrealist artist. Dali was expelled from the Academy for declaring
that no one in the faculty was competent enough to mark him, and
he made his way to Paris, where he studied with the artist he revered
most – Pablo Picasso. During this time, Dali furiously experienced
all influences in a bid to find and create his own style, producing
works that ranged from classic to the most cutting edge and avant-garde.
Using bizarre dream imagery to create unforgettable and unmistakable
landscapes of his inner world, his most famous work is The
Persistence Of Memory.
In 1929, along with Spanish film maker, Luis Bunuel, Dali created
the short film ‘Un Chien Andalou’ and it was here he
met his muse and future wife, Gala, whom he would marry five years
later. He also had important exhibitions of his wok and officially
joined the Surrealist group in Paris.
It was with this group that Dali started to have political conflicts
with as Franco came into power during the aftermath of the Spanish
Civil War. These conflicts eventually lead to the anarcho-monarchistic
Dali being officially expelled from the predominantly Marxist Surrealists.
After a bitter war of words in which Andre Breton coined the anagram
of Dali’s name of “Avida Dollars”, meaning eager
for dollars, Dali proclaimed “The only difference between
me and the Surrealists is that I am a Surrealist”.
Dali was also famous for his bizarre quotations such as –and “At
the age of six, I wanted to be a chef. At the age of seven, I wanted
to be Napoleon. My ambitions have continued to grow at the same
rate ever since.”
Salvador Dalí died of heart failure
on January 23, 1989, at the age of 84 at Figueres, Catalonia, Spain.
He is buried in the crypt of his Teatro Museo in Figueres. |
