Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)
was one of the century`s greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics - and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. Dali was the most famous Naturalistic Surrealist painter. As he described it, in his paintings he aimed to materialize the images of concrete irrationality with the most imperialistic fury of concrete irrationality may be as objectively evident as that of the exterior world of phenomenal reality. All these aspects of Dali's style appear in the "Persistance of Memory", a haunting allegory of empty space where time has ended.
The life of Salvador Dalí
Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marqués de Púbol was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Catalan. His full name on his death was Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis of Dalí de Púbol. He grew up in a bourgeois background and had to endure the strict education of his father. His interest in art developed already in school, when he showed himself as talented in drawing. He had his first painting lessons when he visited a friendly family in El Muli de la Torre. Already one year after he had started his artistic education he received the "diploma de honor" and exhibited his works for the first time in 1918.
Influences on his works
In 1927 he visited Paris for the first time and met there the artists Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro and André Breton. When he visited the city a second time in 1929 Joan Miro encouraged him to join the group of Surrealists. He also got to know Paul Éluard and his wife Helena (Gala). Later Gala got divorced from Paul Éluard and became the muse and mistress of Dali and was later married to him. Because of the civil war they travelled through Europe and emigrated in 1941 to America, where on November 18 in 1941 a retrospective of Miro and Dali took place in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
He was one of the first to apply the insights of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis to the art of painting, approaching the subconscious with extraordinary sensitivity and imagination. Dalí was highly imaginative, and also enjoyed indulging in unusual and grandiose behavior. His eccentric manner and attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his artwork, to the dismay of those who held his work in high esteem, and to the irritation of his critics. Salvador Dalí died on January 23, 1989 in his birthplace Figueras.