Salvador Dali Biography and Artwork

born Figueras (SPAIN) 1904 died Barcelona (SPAIN) 1989

Spanish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and designer. After passing through phases of Cubism, Futurism and Metaphysical painting, he joined the Surrealists in 1929 and his talent for self-publicity rapidly made him the most famous representative of the movement. Throughout his life he cultivated eccentricity and exhibitionism (one of his most famous acts was appearing in a diving suit at the opening of the London Surrealist exhibition in 1936), claiming that this was the source of his creative energy. He took over the Surrealist theory of automatism but transformed it into a more positive method which he named `critical paranoia'. According to this theory one should cultivate genuine delusion as in clinical paranoia while remaining residually aware at the back of one's mind that the control of the reason and will has been deliberately suspended. He claimed that this method should be used not only in artistic and poetical creation but also in the affairs of daily life. His paintings employed a meticulous academic technique that was contradicted by the unreal `dream' space he depicted and by the strangely hallucinatory characters of his imagery. He described his pictures as `hand-painted dream photographs' and had certain favorite and recurring images, such as the human figure with half-open drawers protruding from it, burning giraffes, and watches bent and flowing as if made from melting wax (The Persistence of Memory, MOMA, New York; 1931).

In 1937 Dali visited Italy and adopted a more traditional style; this together with his political views (he was a supporter of General Franco) led Breton to expel him from the Surrealist ranks. He moved to the USA in 1940 and remained there until 1955. During this time he devoted himself largely to self-publicity; his paintings were often on religious themes (The Crucifixion of St John of the Cross, Glasgow Art Gallery, 1951), although sexual subjects and pictures centring on his wife Gala were also continuing preoccupations. In 1955 he returned to Spain and in old age became a recluse.

Apart from painting, Dali's output included sculpture, book illustration, jewellery design, and work for the theatre. In collaboration with the director Luis Bucuel he also made the first Surrealist films---Un chien andalou (1929) and L'Age d'or (1930)---and he contributed a dream sequence to Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945). He also wrote a novel, Hidden Faces (1944) and several volumes of flamboyant autobiography. Although he is undoubtedly one of the most famous artists of the 20th century, his status is controversial; many critics consider that he did little if anything of consequence after his classic Surrealist works of the 1930s. There are museums devoted to Dali's work in Figueras, his home town in Spain, and in St Petersburg in Florida.

Select Timeline

1922 - Attends the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid.
1925 - First one-man exhibition in Barcelona.
1928 - First Salvador Dali painting shown in the US at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburg, PA.
1927 - Dali is summoned to the Castle of San Fernando for 9 months of military service
1929 - meets future wife Gala Eluard. He joins the Surrealist movement.
1934 - Gala and Dali marry in a civil ceremony on January 30.
1936 - gives a lecture in a diving suit at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London. Appears on cover of Time Magazine.
1938 - Dali visits Sigmund Freud in London.
1939 - Creates the Dream of Venus pavilion for the 1936 World's Fair
1940 - Following the German occupation of Paris, the Dali's flee to America
1941 - Dali's first major retrospective is held at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York.
1942 - Autobiography The Secret Life of Salvador Dali is published.
1944 - Publishes his novel Rostras Oscuras (Hidden Faces)
1948 - Dali and Gala return to Spain for the first time after 8 years in the US
1952 - Lecture tour in America on "nuclear mysticism"-his new theory of art which combines religion, math, science and Catalan culture in an attempt to revive classical values and techniques.
1958 - Dali and Gala marry in a religious ceremony in Girona, Spain on August 8.
1965 - Huntington Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art, New York, holds a major Dali retrospective exhibition featuring the entire Morse collection.
1974 - Dali's museum, the Teatre-Museu Dali, in Figueres, Spain, opens on September 28.
1982 - Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida opens on March 7.

Select Exhibitions

1941 - Retrospective. Museum of Modern Art. New York, NY
1928 - Third Annual Carnegie International Exhibition, Pittsburgh, PA
1925 - First one man show. Barcelona, Spain

Select Artwork

1918 - Crepuscular Old Man (begun 1917)
1919 - Port of Cadaques (Night) (begun 1918) and Self-portrait in the Studio
1920 - The Artist's Father at Llane Beach and View of Portdogue (Port Aluger)
1921 - The Garden of Llaner (Cadaques) (begun 1920) and Self-portrait
1922 - Cabaret Scene and Night Walking Dreams
1923 - Self Portrait with L'Humanite and Cubist Self Portrait with La Publicitat
1924 - Still Life (Syphon and Bottle of Rum) (for García Lorca) and Portrait of Luis Bunuel
1925 - Large Harlequin and Small Bottle of Rum, and a series of fine portraits of his sister Anna Maria, most notably Figure At A Window
1926 - Basket of Bread and Girl from Figueres
1927 - Composition With Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) and Honey is Sweeter Than Blood (his first important surrealist work)
1929 - Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog) film in collaboration with Luis Bunuel, The Lugubrious Game, The Great Masturbator, The First Days of Spring, and The Profanation of the Host
1930 - L'Age d'Or (The Golden Age) film in collaboration with Luis Bunuel
1931 - The Persistence of Memory (his most famous work, featuring the "melting clocks"), The Old Age of William Tell, and William Tell and Gradiva
1932 - The Spectre of Sex Appeal, The Birth of Liquid Desires, Anthropomorphic Bread, and Fried Eggs on the Plate without the Plate. The Invisible Man (begun 1929) completed (although not to Dalí's own satisfaction).
1933 - Retrospective Bust of a Woman (mixed media sculpture collage) and Portrait of Gala With Two Lamb Chops Balanced on Her Shoulder, Gala in the window
1934 - The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table and A Sense of Speed
1935 - Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet's Angelus and The Face of Mae West
1936 - Autumn Cannibalism, Lobster Telephone, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) and two works titled Morphological Echo - (the first of which began in 1934).
1937 - Metamorphosis of Narcissus, Swans Reflecting Elephants, The Burning Giraffe, Sleep, The Enigma of Hitler, and Mae West Lips Sofa
1938 - The Sublime Moment and Apparition of a Face and Fruit Dish on the Beach
1940 - The Slave Market with Disappearing Bust of Voltaire, The Face of War
1943 - The Poetry of America and Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man
1944 - Galarina and Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening
1944-1948 - Hidden Faces, a novel
1945 - Basket of Bread-Rather Death Than Shame and Fountain of Milk Flowing Uselessly on Three Shoes; This year Dalí collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on a dream sequence to the film Spellbound, to mutual dissatisfaction.
1946 - The Temptation of St. Anthony
1948 - "Les Elephants"
1949 - Leda Atomica and The Madonna of Port Lligat. Dalí returned to Catalonia this year.
1951 - Christ of St. John of the Cross and Exploding Raphaelesque Head.
1952 - Galatea of the Spheres
1954 - Corpus Hypercubus Crucifixion, Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity and The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (begun in 1952).
1955 - The Sacrament of the Last Supper, Lonesome Echo, record album cover for Jackie Gleason
1956 - Still Life Moving Fast, Rinoceronte vestido con puntillas
1958 - The Rose
1959 - The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.
1960 - Dalí began work on the Teatro-Museo Gala Salvador Dalí
1965 - Dalí donates a gouache, ink and pencil drawing of the Crucifixion to the Rikers Island jail in New York City. The drawing hung in the inmate dining room from 1965 to 1981.
1967 - Tuna Fishing
1969 - Chupa Chups logo
1970 - The Hallucinogenic Toreador, acquired in 1969 by A. Reynolds Morse & Eleanor R. Morse before it was completed
1972 - La Toile Daligram
1976 - Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea
1977 - Dalí's Hand Drawing Back the Golden Fleece in the Form of a Cloud to Show Gala Completely Nude, Very Far Away Behind the Sun (stereoscopical pair of paintings)
1983 - Dalí completed his final painting, The Swallow's Tail.
2003 - Destino, an animated cartoon which was originally a collaboration between Dalí and Walt Disney, is released. Production on Destino began in 1945

Quotes

"The day I went to visit Sigmund Freud in his London exile, on the eve of his death...He said to me, 'In classic paintings I look for the sub-conscious--in a surrealist painting, for the conscious."
"Liking money like I like it, is nothing less than mysticism - Money is a glory."
"I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait."
"At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since"
"It is good taste, and good taste alone, that possesses the power to sterilize and is always the first handicap to any creative functioning."
"There is only one difference between a madman and me…The madman thinks he is sane… I know I am mad"

Publications

DVD - Dalí or the Fly's Dream - Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Barcelona Multimedia, Figueres, Barcelona, 2003.
DVD - Dalí's Games - Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Barcelona Multimedia, Figueres, Barcelona, 2003.
DVD - Dalí by Dalí - Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Barcelona Multimedia, Figueres, Barcelona, 2003.
Childrens Works - Discover Dali's Game - A. Riverol, Ed. Destino, Barcelona, 2004.
Childrens Works - Salvador Dali, Paint Me a Dream - M. Gisbert, Edicions Serres, Barcelona, 2003.
Childrens Works - Dali and the Path of Dreams - A. Obiols, Lumen, Barcelona, 2003.
The Secret Life of Salvador Dali - by Salvador Dali, Dover Publications; Reprint edition (March 3, 1993)
Dali: The Salvador Dali Museum Collection - by Robert S. Lubar, Bulfinch (September 6, 2000)
Dali (Mallard Fine Art Series) - by Paul Moorhouse, Thunder Bay Press (May 16, 2002)
Salvador Dali - by Salvador Dali, Ediciones Poligrafa S.A. (March 2004)
The Shameful Life of Salvador Dali - by Ian Gibson, W. W. Norton & Company; 1st American ed edition (November 1998)
The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Salvador Dali (Adventures in Art) - by Angela Wenzel, Salvador Dali, Rosie Jackson, Prestel Publishing (September 2003)

Quick Facts

Salvador Dali is considered as the greatest artist of the surrealist art movement and one of the greatest masters of art of the twentieth century.
Salvador Dali was born as the son of a prestigious notary in the small town of Figuera in Northern Spain.
By 1929 Dali had found his personal style that should make him famous - the world of the unconscious that is recalled during our dreams.
Salvador Dali is the only known artist who had two museums dedicated exclusively to his works in his lifetime.
Towards the end of his life, Dali lived in the tower of his own museum where he died on January 23, 1989 from heart failure.
Dali prints were created in different techniques: mostly etchings, but also engravings, woodcuts, lithographs and mixed-media. His graphic works were published either as individual sheets or as complete series or as portfolios or as illustrations in limited-edition books.

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