Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí de Púbol (11 May 190423 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí, was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work.
Born in Figueres in Catalonia, Dalí received his formal education in fine arts in Madrid. Influenced by Impressionism and the Renaissance masters from a young age, he became increasingly attracted to Cubism and avant-garde movements.Gibson, Ian, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí, London, Faber and Faber, 1997, Chs 2, 3 He moved closer to Surrealism in the late 1920s and joined the Surrealist group in 1929, soon becoming one of its leading exponents. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931. Dalí lived in France throughout the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) before leaving for the United States in 1940 where he achieved commercial success. He returned to Spain in 1948 where he announced his return to the Catholic faith and developed his "nuclear mysticism" style, based on his interest in classicism, mysticism, and recent scientific developments.Gibson, Ian, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dali (1997)
Dalí's artistic repertoire included painting, sculpture, film, graphic arts, animation, fashion, and photography, at times in collaboration with other artists. He also wrote fiction, poetry, autobiography, essays, and criticism. Major themes in his work include dreams, the subconscious, sexuality, religion, science and his closest personal relationships. To the dismay of those who held his work in high regard, and to the irritation of his critics, his eccentric and ostentatious public behavior often drew more attention than his artwork. His public support for the Francoist regime, his commercial activities and the quality and authenticity of some of his late works have also been controversial.Gibson, Ian (1997), passim His life and work were an important influence on other Surrealists, pop art, popular culture, and contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.
There are two major museums devoted to Salvador Dalí's work: the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Spain, and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.
Biography Early life
Salvador Dalí was born on 11 May 1904, at 8:45 am,Gibson, Ian (1997) p. 22 on the first floor of Carrer Monturiol, 20 in the town of Figueres, in the Empordà region, close to the French border in Catalonia, Spain. Dalí's older brother, who had also been named Salvador (born 12 October 1901), had died of gastroenteritis nine months earlier, on 1 August 1903. His father, Salvador Luca Rafael Aniceto Dalí Cusí (1872–1950)Gibson, Ian (1997) pp. 6, 459, 633, 689 was a middle-class lawyer and notary,Llongueras, Lluís. (2004) Dalí, Ediciones B – Mexico. . an anti-clerical atheist and Catalan federalist, whose strict disciplinary approach was tempered by his wife, Felipa Domènech Ferrés (1874–1921),Gibson, Ian (1997) pp. 16, 82, 634, 644 who encouraged her son's artistic endeavors.Rojas, Carlos. Salvador Dalí, Or the Art of Spitting on Your Mother's Portrait , Penn State Press (1993). . In the summer of 1912, the family moved to the top floor of Carrer Monturiol 24 (presently 10).Gibson, Ian (1997)Dalí, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, 1948, London: Vision Press, p. 33 Dalí later attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" Gibson found out that "Dalí" (and its many variants) is an extremely common surname in Arab countries like Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria or Egypt. On the other hand, also according to Gibson, Dalí's mother's family, the Domènech of Barcelona, had Jewish roots. to an "Arab lineage", claiming that his ancestors were descendants of the Moors.Gibson, Ian (1997) pp. 238–39
Dalí was haunted by the idea of his dead brother throughout his life, mythologizing him in his writings and art. Dalí said of him, "[we] resembled each other like two drops of water, but we had different reflections."Dalí, Secret Life, p. 2 He "was probably the first version of myself but conceived too much in the absolute". Images of his brother would reappear in his later works, including Portrait of My Dead Brother (1963).Gibson, Ian (1997). p. 23
Dalí also had a sister, Anna Maria, who was three years younger, and whom Dalí painted 12 times between 1923 and 1926.Gibson, Ian (1997). p. 109
His childhood friends included future FC Barcelona footballers Emili Sagi-Barba and Josep Samitier. During holidays at the Catalan resort town of Cadaqués, the trio played football together.
Dalí attended the Municipal Drawing School at Figueres in 1916 and also discovered modern painting on a summer vacation trip to Cadaqués with the family of Ramon Pichot, a local artist who made regular trips to Paris. The next year, Dalí's father organized an exhibition of his charcoal drawings in their family home. He had his first public exhibition at the Municipal Theatre in Figueres in 1918, a site he would return to decades later. In early 1921 the Pichot family introduced Dalí to Futurism. That same year, Dalí's uncle Anselm Domènech, who owned a bookshop in Barcelona, supplied him with books and magazines on Cubism and contemporary art.Gibson, Ian (1997), pp. 78–81
On 6 February 1921, Dalí's mother died of uterine cancer.Gibson, Ian (1997) p. 82 Dalí was 16 years old and later said his mother's death "was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her ... I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul."Dalí, Secret Life, pp. 152–53 After the death of Dalí's mother, Dalí's father married her sister. Dalí did not resent this marriage, because he had great love and respect for his aunt.
Madrid, Barcelona and Paris
In 1922, Dalí moved into the Residencia de Estudiantes (Students' Residence) in Madrid and studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts). A lean tall,As listed in his prison record of 1924 , aged 20. However, his hairdresser and biographer, Luis Llongueras, stated Dalí was tall. Dalí already drew attention as an eccentric and dandy. He had long hair and sideburns, coat, stockings, and knee-breeches in the style of English aesthetes of the late 19th century.Gibson, Ian (1997), p. 90
At the Residencia, he became close friends with Pepín Bello, Luis Buñuel, Federico García Lorca, and others associated with the Madrid avant-garde group Ultra.Gibson, Ian (1997), pp. 92–98 The friendship with Lorca had a strong element of mutual passion,For more in-depth information about the Lorca-Dalí connection see Lorca-Dalí: el Amor Que no pudo ser and The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí, both by Ian Gibson. but Dalí said he rejected the poet's sexual advances.Bosquet, Alain, Conversations with Dalí , 1969. pp. 19–20. (PDF) Dalí's friendship with Lorca was to remain one of his most emotionally intense relationships until the poet's death at the hands of Nationalist forces in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
Also in 1922, he began what would become a lifelong relationship with the Prado Museum, which he felt was, 'incontestably the best museum of old paintings in the world.' Each Sunday morning, Dalí went to the Prado to study the works of the great masters. 'This was the start of a monk-like period for me, devoted entirely to solitary work: visits to the Prado, where, pencil in hand, I analyzed all of the great masterpieces, studio work, models, research.'
Those paintings by Dalí in which he experimented with Cubism earned him the most attention from his fellow students, since there were no Cubist artists in Madrid at the time.Michael Elsohn Ross, Salvador Dalí and the Surrealists: Their Lives and Ideas, 21 Activities , Chicago Review Press, 2003, p. 24. Cabaret Scene (1922) is a typical example of such work. Through his association with members of the Ultra group, Dalí became more acquainted with avant-garde movements, including Dada and Futurism. One of his earliest works to show a strong Futurist and Cubist influence was the watercolor Night-Walking Dreams (1922).Gibson, Ian (1997), pp. 97–98 At this time, Dalí also read Freud and Lautréamont who were to have a profound influence on his work.Gibson, Ian (1997), pp. 116–119
In May 1925, Dalí exhibited eleven works in a group exhibition held by the newly formed Sociedad Ibérica de Artistas in Madrid. Seven of the works were in his Cubist mode and four in a more realist style. Several leading critics praised his work.Gibson, Ian (1997), pp. 123–25 Dalí held his first solo exhibition at Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona, from 14 to 27 November 1925.Fèlix Fanés, Salvador Dalí: The Construction of the Image, 1925–1930 , Yale University Press, 2007, This exhibition, before his exposure to Surrealism, included twenty-two works and was a critical and commercial success.Gibson, Ian (1997), pp. 126–27
In April 1926, Dalí made his first trip to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso, whom he revered. Picasso had already heard favorable reports about Dalí from Joan Miró, a fellow Catalan who later introduced him to many Surrealist friends. As he developed his own style over the next few years, Dalí made some works strongly influenced by Picasso and Miró.Gibson, Ian (1997), pp. 130–31 Dalí was also influenced by the work of Yves Tanguy, and he later allegedly told Tanguy's niece, "I pinched everything from your uncle Yves."Gibson, Ian (1997), p. 163
Dalí left the Royal Academy in 1926, shortly before his final exams. His mastery of painting skills at that time was evidenced by his realistic The Basket of Bread, painted in 1926.
Later that year he exhibited again at Galeries Dalmau, from 31 December 1926 to 14 January 1927, with the support of the art critic .Elisenda Andrés Pàmies, Les Galeries Dalmau, un project de modernist a la Ciutat de Barcelona , 2012–13, Facultat d'Humanitats, Universitat Pompeu Fabra The show included twenty-three paintings and seven drawings, with the "Cubist" works displayed in a separate section from the "objective" works. The critical response was generally positive with Composition with Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) singled out for particular attention.Gibson, Ian (1997), pp. 147–49
From 1927, Dalí's work became increasingly influenced by Surrealism. Two of these works, Honey is Sweeter than Blood (1927) and Gadget and Hand (1927), were shown at the annual Autumn Salon (Saló de tardor) in Barcelona in October 1927. Dalí described the earlier of these works, Honey is Sweeter than Blood, as "equidistant between Cubism and Surrealism".Gibson, Ian (1997) p. 162 The works featured many elements that were to become characteristic of his Surrealist period including dreamlike images, precise draftsmanship, idiosyncratic iconography (such as rotting donkeys and dismembered bodies), and lighting and landscapes strongly evocative of his native Catalonia. The works provoked bemusement among the public and debate among critics about whether Dalí had become a Surrealist.Gibson, Ian (1997), p. 171
Influenced by his reading of Freud, Dalí increasingly introduced suggestive sexual imagery and symbolism into his work. He submitted Dialogue on the Beach (Unsatisfied Desires) (1928) to the Barcelona Autumn Salon for 1928; however, the work was rejected because "it was not fit to be exhibited in any gallery habitually visited by the numerous public little prepared for certain surprises."Gibson, Ian (1997), p. 287 The resulting scandal was widely covered in the Barcelona press and prompted a popular Madrid illustrated weekly to publish an interview with Dalí.Gibson, Ian (1997) pp. 186–190