Salvador Dali

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

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 Dalí 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, Dalí's output included sculpture, book illustration, jewellery design, and work for the theatre. In collaboration with the director Luis Buñuel 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 Dalí's work in Figueras, his home town in Spain, and in St Petersburg in Florida.

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1903 His older brother Salvador, died at the age of seven from an attack of meningitis. Dali wrote that they resembled each other like two drops of water, but with different reflections. The profound sadness experienced by their parents was later translated in an unusually intense and permissive dedication towards the new child, Dali. 1904 An artist is born in Figueres, Spain, at forty five minutes after eight o'clock on May 11; Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí. Son of Salvador Dali y Cusi from Cadaques, Gerona, and Felipa Dome Domenech from Barcelona. The meaning of his name "Salvador" indicated, as told by Dali, that he was 'destined to rescue and save painting from the mediocre catastrophes of modern art'. 1908 Ana María, his younger sister, is born. His only female model... until Gala came into picture! 1914 Marcel Duchamp designs what could be considered the first surrealist objects.

1914 Attends a private painting school. 1918 His first exhibition. 1920 André Bretón heads the surrealist movement and swears loyalty to nonsense, dreams, incoherence, hyperboles and everything that opposes to what is considered reality. 1921 Goes to an Art School in Madrid. 1921 His mother dies. 1923 He separated a year from school. 1924 André Bretón proposes the manufacture of objects that only appear in dreams. 1924 Dali dedicates his attention to the Metaphysical School created by Giorgio De Chirico and Carlo Carra. Where a rejection to Futurism and Cubism, and a return to the world of dreams and inner life was proposed. 1924 Arrested due to politic suspitions. 1924 André Breton surrealism manifest. It proposed a radical and systematic revision of received values, and a revaluation of the unconscious as a source of all artistic inspiration (Maddox). 1925 Back to Art Scholl. 1925 Met Garcia Lorca in Cadaques. 1925 First one-man show held in Barcelona. 1926 He is expelled from Art School. 1926 First Trip to Paris. 1927 He visits Pablo Picasso and experienced a great emotion when received by the Artist. He showed his respect and said "I have come to see you before visiting the Louvre" and Picasso responded "You have done right indeed". 1927 Concludes his military service. 1927 Joan Miró visits him in Cadaqués. 1928 He visits Paris and asks the taxi driver if he knows a good brothel. He then went to the famous "Chabanais" and was impressed by the cheap eroticism of its staircase. 1929 Second Surrealist Manifest. 1929 Meets other Surrealists and Elena Dimitrovna Diakonova (Gala). 1929 Collaborates with Luis Bruñuel with the film "Un Chien Andalou" (An Andalutian Dog). The awkward sequences of this film pleased the surrealists, despite the fact that the public in general could not digest it's crude scenes. 1929 His first one-man exposition in the city of Paris.

1930 Begins to develop the critical-paranoiac method. 1930 Second film with Bruñuel "L'age d'or" (The Golden Age). The film had much violence and the public objected. During its opening, a fight took place in which a group of extreme right participated. The cinema suffered serious damage and the police prohibited the film's projection. 1930 Officially joins the surrealist movement. 1931 Participates in "The Newer Super-Realism" exhibition in Wadsworth Atheneum, Connecticut. 1931 He introduces his famous soft watches. 1933 Dalí offered himself to write the preface of the catalogue for the Surrealist Exhibition in the Colle Gallery. It caused controversy among the surrealists because the painter intended to praise Meissonier. 1933 First exhibition in NYC. 1934 Individual exhibition in London. 1934 The painter is interested in what he would later call "Instantaneous Figures". 1934 Dali goes to NYC. 1934 Collective Exhibition in Brussels. 1934 A trial to expel Dali from the surrealist group takes place. 1935 Defines the critical-paranoiac method. 1936 Garcia Lorca was shot and killed in the Spanish Civil War. 1937 Writes "The Metamorphosis of Narcissus" in which he explains the painting with the same name. 1937 Went to Italy; away from the civil war in Spain. 1938 Dali is part of the surrealist exhibition in Paris. 1938 Leaves Italy. 1938 Met Sigmund Freud. 1938 He moved to Monte Carlo due to the Munich crisis. 1939 Dali published his manifesto in New York: "Declaration of Independence of the Imagination and of the Right of Man to His Own Madness" 1939 The artist creates "The Dream of Venus", a pavilion for the first Universal Exhibition of New York. 1939 Exhibit in the Julien Levy Gallery of New York. 1939 Dali goes to France. 1940 Dali and Gala go to the US. 1940 Dali begins his "classic" era. 1941 First mayor retrospective exhibit. 1942 Publication of "The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí". 1942 The surrealists that stay away from Dalí, initiate the publication of their own magazine. They begin to gain more recognition in the United States and call the famous painter "Avida Dollars". 1944 Publication of his first novel "Hidden Faces". 1945 Becomes interested in nuclear physics.

1945 Works with Alfred Hitchcock producing the dream sequences of his film "Spellbound". 1946 Made some drawings for Walt Disney. 1947 In a painting contest organized by the cinematographic company Loew-Lewin; the work presented by Max Ernst won. The non-winning proposal of Dalí was "The Temptations of Saint Antthony". 1948 Returns to Europe; to Port Lligart... 1956 Washington exhibition. 1957 Designs a night club in Acapulco that would move and breathe. The project was never built. 1958 Dali and Gala meet the Pope. 1958 Marries Gala.

1964 Tokio exhibition. 1964 Publication of "Diary of a Genius". 1964 Dali receives "The Great Cross of Isabel the Catholic". 1971 3D (stereoscopic) experiments. 1974 He creates the hologram "The Shepherd and The Sirens ". 1974 Opening of the "Dali Theater Museum" in Figueres. 1978 Spanish King goes to Dali's museum in Figueres. 1979 Retrospective Exhibition in Paris. 1980 Retrospective Exhibition in London. 1982 Gala dies. 1983 His last painting. 1983 Retrospective Exhibition in Barcelona and Madrid. 1986 Suffers a fire accident in his castle. 1989 Retrospective Exhibition in Stuttgart and Zurich. 1989 The 23rd of January, at the age of 84, dies in Figueres... Eugenio Salvador Dalí.

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