The Spanish painter Salvador Dali remains one of the most controversial and paradoxical artists of the twentieth century. Over the last few decades, Salvador Dali has gradually come to be seen, alongside the likes of Picasso and Matisse, as a prodigious figure whose life and work occupies a central and unique position in the history of modern art. The first solo exhibition of Salvador Dali abstract paintings was 1931's The Persistence of Memory in Paris. Surrealism would heave him to fame. Salvador Dali's painting prices continue to rise, with Portrait of Paul Eluard, 1929, selling at $22.4 million.
Salvador Dalí was a multi talented artist. Though known for his surrealist paintings, melting clocks, and eccentric behavior, Dalí was an incredibly skilled and trained craftsman in a multitude of disciplines. His art ranged from the two-dimensional to the three dimensional, from surrealism to realism, from the chaotic to the harmonized. To understand Dalí as an artist one needs to look at his entire canon of work. His skills in sculpture telegraph a different side than his work as a filmmaker. Every way Dalí produced art was a way to tell a different story and different side of himself. Dalí believed that life itself was a work of art, a work of art that needs to be mastered and conquered every day. Thus for Salvador Dalí it made perfect sense for him to turn everything he did into an art form. From the mundane to the extraordinary Dalí saw art blossoming in all things. In fact he developed a skill he called the paranoiac-critical method in order to train his brain to irrationally link objects ideas. He described it as “spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the critical and systematic objectivity of the associations and interpretations of delirious phenomena.” With the paranoiac-critical method at his disposal the world was open to Dalí in an endless amount of possibilities. Dalí would forge his inspiration and imagination onto many forms of art and create some of the 20th century’s most memorable artistic icon.
Salvador Dalí’s most famous works are undoubtedly his paintings. Dalí spent many years from a young age being formally trained in traditional painting. He studied the works of the “masters” including, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Vermeer, Raphael, and Da Vinci. It is evident in his earliest of works that Dalí was profoundly influence by realism; he sought to capture the world as it was and to perfect the forms of the world. Soon though his art would take a turn a he would be influenced by the new art movements emerging, Dadaism and Cubism. It wasn’t till his twenties that Dalí fell under the spell of Surrealism and his life changed forever.
Through all these phases Dalí maintained an impeccable technique. Nowhere is this more evident than in his masterpiece The Persistence of Memory. Here Dalí shocked the world with his unforgettable images of his melting clock.
Throughout Dalí’s paintings you can see a variety of influences. For example a religious influence as seen in his paintings Christ of Saint John of the Cross and Crucifixion (Corppus Hypercubus). You see the influence of Spain in Autumn Cannibalism and Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premontion of Civil War). In his paintings Leda Atomica and Galatea of the Spheres we see the influence that science and physics had on Dalí.
Dalí produced approximately 1,700 prints. This limited edition hand signed graphic works ranged in subjects from music like Symphony Bicyclette to plants like the suite FlorDalí. Dalí was a master print maker. He earned the techniques of etching and engraving and regularly worked on this part of his craft to produce brilliant prints. Among his famous prints is his homage to the master, Changes in Great Masterpieces, where Dalí reworks paintings by masters like Vermeer.
Dalí also created an extensive collection of sculptures. Some of the larger ones he has produced have stood around the world in places like London (at the foot of the London eye), Singapore, and all throughout France. Perhaps his most famous sculpture is Lobster Telephone. Dalí worked in this medium during much of his life. It was a way from him to bring his ideas on to the third dimension and give his paintings more life.
Today Dalí’s drawings are highly sought after in the art market. Many of his drawings fetch for thousands of dollars. Usually these drawings were his studies, his initial plans for his works to be. What is remarkable is that these drawings on their own stand as their own legitimate work of art. When you see a Dalí drawing up close you see the extraordinary precision in his artistry.
All these manners of expression for Dalí were simply his need to fulfill his life. His paintings hang on the walls of the most prestigious museums in the world; they are often cited for their remarkable vision and talent. His drawings are owned by some of the world’s most prominent art collectors. His sculptures are displayed throughout the world. Dalí’s graphic works are now being bought up by established and new art collectors. These prints were made for the masses and now number in few that are available. They are a way for those who want a piece of Dalí’s legacy.
Dalí was a print maker, painter, filmmaker, photographer, designer, jeweler, sculptor, an artist in every sense of the word….but most importantly, he remains one of the 20th century’s lasting artistic master.
A Century of Salvador Dalí
The man. The master. The marvel. Salvador Dalí is one of the most celebrated artists of all time. His fiercely technical yet highly unusual paintings, sculptures and visionary explorations in film and life-size interactive art ushered in a new generation of imaginative expression. From his personal life to his professional endeavors, he always took great risks and proved how rich the world can be when you dare to embrace pure, boundless creativity.
Discover the life and legend of Salvador Dalí, and get to know the people, places and events that transformed this Spanish son into a surrealist sensation. The following timeline outlines the chronology of Dalí's life and work.
The Surreal Journey Begins
Salvador Dalí was born on May 11, 1904 to parents Salvador Dalí Cusi, a prominent notary, and Felipa Domenech Ferres, a gentle mother who often indulged young Salvador’s eccentric behavior. Felipa was a devout Catholic and the elder Salvador an Atheist, which was a combination that heavily influenced their son’s worldview. Dalí’s artistic talent was obvious from a young age, and both of his parents supported it—though it is known that the relationship with his disciplinarian father was strained. Ultimately, Dalí’s raw creativity and defiant attitude would distance him from his father, but it would also become the cornerstone of his wildly imaginative artistic feats.
Surreal Fact
In 1903, Horatio Jackson made the first automobile trip across America. It took him 64 full days to drive from San Francisco to NYC.
Budding Brilliance
Dalí’s father quickly realized that his son wasn’t fit for public school, so he enrolled 6-year-old Salvador in the Hispano-French School of the Immaculate Conception where he learned French, the primary language he would later use as an artist. Dalí spent his childhood and early adolescence in Catalonia—school years in Figueres and breaks in the coastal village of Cadaques where his family had a summer home. There, he drew and painted the seaside landscape and met his early mentor Ramon Pichot. Cadaques is also where Dalí’s parents built him his first art studio.
Surreal Fact
In 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in Paris. It took two years to recover Leonardo da Vinci's missing masterpiece. The compleat distiller free.
School Is Out. Surrealism Is In.
Dalí’s tumultuous 1920s life perfectly reflected the decade’s “roaring” nickname. Four years after being accepted to the San Fernando Academy of Art in Madrid, he was expelled after refusing to be examined in the theory of art and declaring the examiners incompetent to judge him. He experimented with futurism, impressionism and cubism, and during one of his several trips to Paris, movement leader Andre Breton exposed him to the world of Surrealism. In 1925, Dalí had his first solo exhibition in Barcelona, and the decade saw his works showcased throughout the world. After leaving the Academy, Dalí returned to Catalonia where his art became increasingly bizarre and even grotesque.
Surreal Fact
In 1925, a diphtheria outbreak in rural Alaska prompted 18 dog-sled teams to travel 674 miles to bring medicine to those in need. The Iditarod commemorates this trek every year.
Trials, Trouble and Travel
The thirties watched Dalí transform from a key figure in the Surrealist movement into its enemy. After becoming a prominent figure of the group, he was nearly expelled after a “trial” in 1934. His dismissal was due to his apolitical stance, his personal feud with leader Andre Breton, and his public antics. In July 1936, the Spanish Civil War started and Dalí and his wife remained in Paris, where he continued evolving his artistic style. He was heavily influenced by the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud, whom Dalí met in 1938. In 1939 Andre Breton definitively expelled Dalí from Surrealism.
Surreal Fact
When Betty Boop made her cartoon debut in 1930, her character was actually a dog and not a woman.
Inspiring Awe In America
Dalí and Gala spent the better part of the 1940s in America after fleeing WWII. During the couple’s eight years stateside, New York’s MOMA gallery presented the artist’s first retrospective and he explored new creative expressions on film. He teamed up with Alfred Hitchcock to create dream-like sequences for Spellbound and was later hired by Walt Disney to complete the art and storyboards for what would ultimately become the film Destino. At the very end of the decade and from the comfort of this homeland Catalonia, Dalí entered his noteworthy classical period.
Surreal Fact
Naval engineer Richard James invented the Slinky toy by accident when he was trying to build a ship horsepower monitor using steel tension springs during WWII.
Mystical Measures
Salvador Dalí was in the heart of his classical period throughout the 1950s. He created nineteen large canvases characterized by meticulously detailed images of religious, historical and scientific themes, or what Dalí called “nuclear mysticism.” He became obsessed with geometry, DNA, divinity and experimented heavily with visual illusions. From a personal perspective, his growing affinity for religious themes prompted he and Gala, his muse and the love of his life, to remarry—this time, in a Catholic church.
Surreal Fact
The C.I.A. secretly funded and revised the 1954 animated film version of George Orwell’s allegorical novel Animal Farm.
An Icon In Every Dimension
From awe-inspiring works to distinctively high praise, Dalí continued breaking boundaries throughout the sixties. He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic, one of Spain’s highest distinctions and began work on what would become the Teatro-Museo Dalí (The Dalí Theatre-Museum) in his hometown of Figueres All the while, Dalí’s deepening interests in space and science were powerfully reflected in his work. He strived to explore and challenge what was possible in the third dimension, and became fascinated with the fourth, or immortality.
Surreal Fact
In 1962, three incarcerated criminals attempted to escape Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary on an inflatable raft. It is still unknown whether they were successful or died in the act.
Evolving Perspectives
Even as he aged and his health began to decline, Salvador Dalí remained resilient in his artistic quest to examine life from every possible angle. He continued to paint—endlessly challenging visual norms with holographic and stereoscopic imagery—all the while dedicating much of his time to opening the Teatro-Museo Dalí, which still sits just a few blocks away from his birthplace. Moreover, Dalí remained a prominent public figure and celebrity with retrospectives exhibiting all over the world.
Surreal Fact
Salvador Dali Art
The world’s first gourmet jelly bean brand (later dubbed Jelly Belly) debuted in 1975 with unusual flavors like licorice, root beer, cream soda and tangerine.
Death Or Immortality?
In the last years of his life, and following the death of his dear wife Gala, Dalí painted less and less. Still fascinated by the ideas of immortality and the fourth dimension, his last works were mathematical in nature—challenging the plasticity of life as we know it. In 1984, Dalí was severely injured in a house fire at his Pubol castle and was confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. Friends, followers and fellow artists then moved him back to Figueres to live at the Teatro-Museo where he died of heart failure on January 23, 1989 at the age of 84.
Surreal Fact
In 1985, denture manufacturers stopped using radioactive uranium in their porcelain. The toxic material was added for decades to give false teeth a natural look.
Living On Through Imagination
Salvador Dali Artist
Even after death, Salvador Dalí’s star didn’t fade. In 1990, his estate was split between Madrid and Catalonia, and many prominent exhibitions of the artist’s work continued to show throughout the world. From Montreal, London and Spain to Tokyo, Venice and the United States, Dalí’s indescribable talent and extraordinary creativity has become a universal language of fearlessness, inspiration and relentless self-expression. The Dalí Museum continues to honor the work and memory of its namesake with an expansive permanent collection, educational programming and world-class exhibits featuring other notable artists, including Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso.
Surreal Fact
Salvador Dali Art Elephants
Salvador Dali Art Melting Clock
Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned, was born in 1996 and lived for six and a half years.