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Dali, full name: Salvador Felipe
Jacinto Dali i Domenech, was born on May 11, 1904,
in the small agricultural town of Figueres, Spain, in
the foothills of the Pyrenees. This meant that he lived
only sixteen miles from the French border in the principality
of Catalonia. He was the son of a prosperous
notary, and spent his childhood in Figueres and at the
family's summer home in the coastal fishing village
of Cadaques. His first studio was built for him by his
parents and was situated in Cadaques. For most of his
adult life he lived in a fantastic villa in nearby Port
Lligat.
As
a young man, Dali attended the San Fernando Academy
of Fine Arts in Madrid. Early recognition of Dali's
talent came with his first one-man show, held in Barcelona
in 1925. He recieved international fame when
three of his paintings were shown in the third annual
Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh in 1928.
In a way, this was was his prime 'starting block'.
After
this, Dali went to Paris the following year, again holding
a one-man show, and at this point Dali joined the Paris
Surrealist Group. It was in this same year that Dali
met Gala Eluard when she visited him in Cadaques
with her husband, the French poet Paul Eluard. She became
Dali's lover, muse, business manager, and the source
of inspiration for many of Dali's greatest works.
They were married in 1934 at a civil ceremony and made
their first trip to America.
Dali
emerged as a leader of the Surrealist movement and his
painting, Persistence of Memory (1931) is still one
of the best known surrealist works. But, as war approached,
the apolitical Dali clashed with the Surrealists and
he was expelled during a trial conducted by the group
in 1934. Although he did exhibit works in international
surrealist exhibitions throughout the decade, asserting
that: "le Surrealisme c'est moi" by 1940 he was
ready to move into a new era, one that he termed "classic."
During
World War II Dali and his wife, Gala, took refuge in
the United States, returning after the war's end to
Spain. His international reputation continued to grow,
based as much on his flamboyance and flair
for publicity as on his prodigious output of paintings,
graphic works, and book illustrations; and designs for
jewellrey, textiles, clothing, costumes, shop interiors,
and stage sets. His writings include poetry, fiction,
and a controversial autobiography, `The Secret Life
of Salvador Dali'.
Dali
returned to the Catholic faith of his youth and he and
Gala were married in a second ceremony in 1958, this
time in a chapel near Girona, Spain.
Dali
produced two films - `An Andalusian Dog'(1928)
and `The Golden Age'(1930) - in collaboration with Bunuel.
Considered surrealist classics, they are filled with
grotesque images. `The Persistence of Memory', painted
in 1931, is perhaps the most widely recognized surrealist
painting in the world.
In
1974 Dali opened the Teatro Museo Dali in Figueres.
This was followed by retrospectives in Paris and London
at the end of the decade.
After
Gala's death in 1982, Dali's health began to
fail. It deteriorated further after he was severely
burned in a fire in Gala's castle in Pubol, Spain, in
1984. Two years later, a pacemaker was implanted. Much
of the years 1980-89 were spent in almost total seclusion,
first in Pubol and later in his private room in the
Torre Galatea, adjacent to the Teatro Museo Dali.
On
January 23, 1989, Salvador Dali died in a hospital in
Figueres from heart failure and respiratory complications.
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