Salvador Dali

Biography of Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali was born in Figueras on May 11, 1904.

At the age of 17, he entered the School of Fine Arts in Madrid, from which he was definitively expelled in 1926 for anarchic conduct. During these five years, he formed strong friendships with Federico Garcia Lorca and Luis Bunuel (for whom he wrote the screenplay for "Un Chien Andalou" in the late 1920s).

His early exhibitions, while he was still wavering between cubism and surrealism (it was Miro, along with his admiration for Arp and Tanguy, that led him in this direction), drew attention to him. The strength of his lines, the precision of his painting quickly earned him recognition in major galleries in Barcelona, as well as those in Paris, London, or New York.

During the summer of 1929, he met Gala Eluard (wife of Paul Eluard), who would never leave him again, becoming not only his companion but also his muse.

The Spanish Civil War, the assassination of Garcia Lorca in Granada, and the outbreak of World War II, along with some attacks from other surrealists accusing his work of "glorifying Hitlerian fascism," prompted him to leave Franco's Spain for eight years in favor of the United States.

In 1952, he began work on the wood engravings for Dante's "Divine Comedy," which remains one of his most famous works, before following up a few years later with "The Apocalypse of Saint John."

Celebrated and honored during his lifetime (notably by the opening of a museum dedicated to him in his hometown), he enjoyed playing with the media in the last years of his life.

He passed away on January 21, 1989, joining Gala who had passed away 7 years earlier.

(c) Natacha PELLETIER for PASSION ESTAMPES