Born on May 11, 1904, Salvador Dali i Domenech would become one
of the world’s most recognized surrealist artists. Raised by his
lawyer/notary father and a mother who encouraged her artistic son,
Dali grew up in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, having been told by his
parents that he was the reincarnation of his older brother,
Salvador, who died just nine months before Dali’s birth. Following
the death of his mother to breast cancer in 1921, Dali moved to the
student residences at the School of Fine Arts in Madrid. He spent
several years studying there and then shortly before his
graduation, he was expelled for declaring that no one on the
faculty of the school was competent enough to examine him.
By 1931, Dali had collaborated on a short film with surrealist
director Luis Bunuel; illustrated a book called “The Witches of
Liers”, a poem written by his friend and classmate Carles Fages de
Climent; met his muse and future wife Gala; and painted arguably
his most famous work The Persistence of Memory. He had officially
joined the surrealist group in Paris, and was hailed by the
surrealist community of artists. When Salvador Dali openly
supported the regime of Francisco Franco following the Spanish
Civil war, and showed interest in what he referred to as the
“Hitler phenomenon”, he became somewhat of an outcast among his
fellow artists. Many of his fellow surrealists referred to Dali in
past tense, indicating their feeling that he was dead to them. He
wrote prolifically during this time, and continued producing his
art.
In 1940, Dali and Gala moved to the United States, and it was
during this time that Dali reclaimed his Catholic faith. In 1942,
Dali wrote his autobiography, “The Secret Life of Salvador Dali”.
He asked an Italian monk to perform an exorcism on him in the late
1940’s, and in exchange for the exorcism, he presented the friar
with a sculpture of Jesus Christ on the cross, which was not
discovered until 2005. Although they had been married civilly in
1934, Dali and Gala were married in the Catholic Church in 1958. In
the late 1940’s, Dali and Gala returned to Spain. Dali continued a
prolific career in art, being one of the first artists to use
holography and taking great inspiration from his Catholic faith and
the events of the day, including the bombing at Hiroshima. From
this time period, two of Dali’s most famous works, Hallucinogenic
Toreador and La Gare de Perpignan were created. Dali’s work was
used in advertising campaigns, most notably for Chupa Chups candy
and Lanvin chocolates, and he became fascinated by DNA and the hypercube, which can be seen in some of his
later work. King Juan Carlos of Spain bestowed upon Dali the title
Marquis of Pubol in 1982.
By this time, Dali was seriously ill, having been given
unprescribed medicine by his senile wife Gala. The medications
damaged Dali’s nervous system and gave him Parkinson’s like tremors
in his hands. Gala died in 1982, leaving the stricken Dali
devastated. He was brought back to Figueres in 1984 by friends who
felt a deliberate dehydration of the artist and a fire in his
bedroom were suicide attempts.
On January 23, 1989, Salvador Dali, known for his contributions
not only to surrealism, but also to fashion, theatre, and
photography, died from heart failure. He is buried in a crypt at
his Teatro Museo de Figueres, just steps from his childhood
home.
