Surrealism was a style of creativity and life embraced by a mad genius who always captured the interest of the public and psychiatrists alike. The vibrant performances of this eccentric dreamer, oddball, and provocateur became part of his personal brand and a continuation of a commercially successful artistic method he called “paranoid-critical.”
The Willful “Savior”
The renowned Catalan was born on May 11, 1904, into the family of a wealthy notary in Figueres. By naming their son Salvador (which translates from Spanish as Savior), his parents inadvertently instilled in him a desire to showcase his uniqueness. This was further justified by the fact that he shared a name with his father, Salvador Dalí i Cusi, and his older brother, who had passed away at the age of two. The first son died of meningitis nine months before the birth of the “twin.” When his parents showed Salvador his brother’s grave and told him about the reincarnation of the deceased’s soul into the newborn, this news shocked the five-year-old child. Salvador Dalí did not want to be anyone’s copy and spent his life convincing the world of his singularity.
“At six, I dreamed of becoming a chef; at seven, Napoleon; and as I grew older, my ambitions only increased,” he confessed in his autobiographical book about “the secrets of Salvador Dalí, revealed by himself.”
In boyhood fights and daring adventures, Salvador always pretended he had won. He played on the nerves of his loved ones, drawing attention to himself with expressive antics. The temperamental yet shy Salvador simply had no other means. His younger sister, Anna Maria, who was four years his junior, reflected on his problematic behavior: “It was hard to bear my brother’s difficult nature, but there were plenty of reasons to love him.”
Talent Without Borders
By the age of six, Salvador confidently held a paintbrush and amazed his family with an impressionistic landscape painted on a board with oil paints. For his beloved pastime, the young artist was given a separate room where he spent days and nights painting. He honed his natural abilities under the guidance of an experienced mentor, painting professor Joan Núñez. Starting at the municipal art school, from 1914 to 1918, Dalí was a student at a monastic institution in Figueres, from which he was expelled at 15 due to poor behavior. However, he did complete his secondary education, earning an excellent certificate to enter the Madrid Academy of Fine Arts.
At the same time, the “troublesome” teenager discovered his talent for writing and began publishing actively at the age of 16. His youthful essays on great artists served as a prologue to his future books: in both painting and literature, he proved to be an equally gifted master.
In the year his mother died (47-year-old Felipa Domenech succumbed to breast cancer), Salvador became a student at the capital’s Academy of Fine Arts, expanding his knowledge of artistic techniques and meeting interesting people. Among his new acquaintances were director Luis Buñuel and poet Federico García Lorca.
“The Persistence of Memory,” Salvador Dalí
Destructive Self-Expression
The artistic nature of creativity led Dalí to discover new forms of interaction with the world. He developed an interest in inner experiences, became fascinated with Freudian theory, and began to pay attention to the movements of the soul and symbolic associations. Delving into the abyss of hidden feelings, this proponent of irrationality changed masks and blurred the line between fantasy and reality. His painting style mirrored his personal presentation: in his art, outward appearance, and expression of thoughts, Dalí saw himself as a “poser.”
His disciplinary violations led to a year-long break from attending lectures at the Academy. Removed from his studies, this participant in student protests became captivated by the work of Pablo Picasso, who would remain an undeniable authority for Dalí throughout his life. Gradually, Salvador lost interest in his alma mater and left it of his own accord in 1926. He moved to Paris with the experience of his first solo exhibition at the Dalmaus Gallery, where over thirty of his early works were displayed.
His further quest for self-discovery in art led the artist to the surrealist group. His acquaintance with the theorist of the new movement, André Breton, in the late 1920s was marred by aesthetic and political disagreements, leading to a break in contact with his colleagues. Dalí confidently declared, “Surrealism is me!”
One of his outrageous stunts during this time cost Salvador a rift with his family. His father and sister could not forgive him for insulting their mother’s memory (she loved her son dearly). This incident involved a phrase inspired by Freud’s “Oedipus complex” written on one of Dalí’s paintings: “Sometimes it’s nice to spit on your mother’s portrait” (the 1929 work “The Sacred Heart”). After the quarrel, the artist sent his father an envelope containing his own semen with the words: “This is all I owe you.”
The final straw in his relationship with his family was the arrival of his muse, Gala, whom the artist’s family believed had driven him completely mad.
Dalí and Gala, 1930
The Sweet Couple
There is no consensus on the role of the beloved model, wife, and manager in the artist’s life: some consider his partner a blessing, while others see her as a curse. While those around him compared the “greedy Russian” Elena Diakonova to a plague, the artist adored her for half a century, claiming that it was Gala’s belief in his genius that created Salvador Dalí.
At the time of his closeness with the then-wife of poet Paul Éluard, Dalí had no experience with real, as opposed to imagined, women. Instead, he approached this significant milestone in his personal life as a fully formed artist: by 1929-30, Salvador had become the author of popular surrealist masterpieces such as “Blood is Thicker than Honey,” “The Light of Joy,” “The Invisible Man,” “The Persistence of Memory,” and others. The main theme of this fashionable author’s work was the perspective on life and death through the lens of sexual experiences (influenced by the philosophy of Sigmund Freud).
The year of his acquaintance with Gala Éluard began with a scandalous premiere in 1929: the surrealist plot of the film, based on a script by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel, “An Andalusian Dog,” was conceived in less than a week (the second arthouse film based on Dalí’s script, “The Golden Age,” premiered in London in early 1931). Gala had long been established in the European art scene, so she eagerly took on the task of promoting her new husband. The passionate lovers married in 1934, although they had been living together since 1930. The former husband of the bride was present at the wedding as a witness for the groom (for his connection with a friend’s wife, Dalí “apologized” with a painting gifted to the poet).
Dalí and Gala, 1940
“Surviving in an Era of Progress”
After visiting Italy in 1937, the artist decided to save art from modernist degradation. He was so influenced by the magic of Renaissance masterpieces that he even tried to adhere to academic proportions in depicting bodies in his metaphysical fantasies.
The occupation of France in 1940 forced Dalí to move to the United States. There, he and Gala lived for eight years, opening an art studio in California. In collaboration with Walt Disney, Salvador worked on the animated film “Destino,” but this surreal project was never realized due to “commercial impracticality.” For the same reasons, a dream sequence featuring Dalí’s designs was removed from Alfred Hitchcock’s film “Spellbound.”
His years of creativity in the U.S. turned out to be the most fruitful in the life of the Spanish “money lover.” Here, the artist found opportunities in literature (in 1942, he shocked puritans with his fictionalized biography “The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, Written by Himself” and published the novel “Hidden Faces” about the lives of aristocrats on the eve of World War II), book illustration, theatrical set design, and the production of the first surrealist ballet, “Mad Tristan.” Alongside painting, Salvador achieved success in interior design and advertising photography. “If art is to survive in an era of barbaric technological progress, then the starting point for this will be the experience of Salvador Dalí,” the artist noted.
Marquis de Púbol
Upon returning to his homeland, the Spaniard came back with worldwide fame. His clients included millionaires. Salvador bought Gala a castle and rebuilt a theater-museum in Figueres that had been destroyed during the civil war for his works. It features everything, including impressive holograms of his own creation.
The death of his muse in 1982 took a toll on the artist, although by that time the couple had been living separately. Doctors suspected Parkinson’s disease in the frail Salvador. Despite his illness, the member of the French Academy of Fine Arts and holder of the Grand Cross from the King of Spain continued to work. That same year, he was granted the title of Marquis de Púbol.
In late autumn 1988, 84-year-old Salvador Dalí was hospitalized for heart failure, and on January 23, 1989, he passed away. He bequeathed all his property and artistic legacy to Spain and requested to be buried in a way that would allow people to walk over his grave. No inscription was made on the floor slab under which the surrealist was laid to rest.
Almost thirty years later, in July 2017, the artist’s remains were disturbed by a Madrid court ruling. A clairvoyant from Girona insisted on a genetic examination, claiming to be Salvador Dalí’s daughter, a revelation she learned from her mother. DNA analysis did not confirm this.
Salvador Dalí, 1981
Interesting Facts About Salvador Dalí
- The Spanish painter, director, and writer was also a graphic artist, designer, and sculptor. The Clot collection includes 44 bronze statues by Dalí from the artist’s home in Port Lligat.
- Dalí designed a phone with a lobster-shaped receiver, a table made from a sheep’s carcass, a chair with “human” legs, and the famous lip-shaped sofa.
- The artist used motifs from his paintings to create jewelry and collaborated with couturier Christian Dior on unusual clothing designs: a super-small bikini, a suit made of boxes, and a dress resembling a human skeleton.
- In 1969, Dalí assisted his fellow countryman Enrique Bernat in creating the new “Chupa Chups” logo.
- At surrealist exhibitions, the flamboyant Salvador would arrive with a 12-meter-long breadstick, dressed in a diving suit, a leopard-print robe, and a rotten herring on his head.
- Dalí also had an unsuccessful experience in decoration. He smashed surreal decorations in the luxurious windows of Bonwit Teller in New York after seeing the “corrections” made by the client. One of the bathtubs, in which mannequins were submerged, broke the glass and fell onto the street, and the decorator jumped out after it, using the opportunity for a dramatic entrance before the crowd.
- At a party at the Plaza Hotel in the 1970s, Dalí joked with singer Cher by slipping her a remote-controlled vibrator.
- In the video sequence of the film “Impressions of Upper Mongolia,” you can see stains made on a brass plate with uric acid “produced” by Dalí himself.
- The artist was also original in his choice of pets. He had an ocelot and a giant anteater, which he walked through the city streets and even took with him to social events.
- At the end of 1959, the ovocypede—a transparent sphere-shaped vehicle with a passenger seat inside—was presented in the capital of France. This creation by engineer Laparra was designed based on a sketch by Salvador Dalí.
- The artist initially prepared a place for himself in a crypt next to Gala, but after a fire in the castle, during which he nearly perished, he abandoned that plan and spent his remaining years near his own theater-museum. There, his body was entombed in the floor after his death at the age of 85.