Salvador Dalí : Biography
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| Salvador Dalí |
Salvador Dalí : Biography
Painter (1904–1989)
Spanish artist and Surrealist
icon Salvador Dalí is perhaps best known for his painting of melting clocks,
The Persistence of Memory.
Who Was Salvador Dalí?
Salvador Dalí was
born on May 11, 1904, in Figueres, Spain. From an early age Dalí was encouraged
to practice his art, and he would eventually go on to study at an academy in
Madrid. In the 1920s, he went to Paris and began interacting with artists such
as Picasso, Magritte and Miró, which led to
Dalí's first Surrealist phase. He is perhaps best known for his 1931
painting The Persistence of Memory, showing melting clocks in a
landscape setting. The rise of fascist leader Francisco Franco in Spain led to
the artist's expulsion from the Surrealist movement, but that didn't stop him
from painting. Dalí died in Figueres in 1989.
Early
Life
Salvador Dalí was
born Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí y Domenech on May 11, 1904, in Figueres,
Spain, located 16 miles from the French border in the foothills of the Pyrenees
Mountains. His father, Salvador Dalí y Cusi, was a middle class lawyer and
notary. Salvador's father had a strict disciplinary approach to raising
children—a style of child-rearing which contrasted sharply with that of his
mother, Felipa Domenech Ferres. She often indulged young Salvador in his art
and early eccentricities.
It has been said that
young Salvador was a precocious and intelligent child, prone to fits of anger
against his parents and schoolmates. Consequently, Dalí was subjected to
furious acts of cruelty by more dominant students or his father. The elder
Salvador wouldn't tolerate his son's outbursts or eccentricities, and punished
him severely. Their relationship deteriorated when Salvador was still young,
exacerbated by competition between he and his father for Felipa's affection.
Dalí had an older
brother, born nine months before him, also named Salvador, who died of
gastroenteritis. Later in his life, Dalí often related the story that when he
was 5 years old, his parents took him to the grave of his older brother and told
him he was his brother's reincarnation. In the metaphysical prose he frequently
used, Dalí recalled, "[we] resembled each other like two drops of water,
but we had different reflections." He "was probably a first version
of myself, but conceived too much in the absolute."
Salvador, along with
his younger sister Ana Maria and his parents, often spent time at their summer
home in the coastal village of Cadaques. At an early age, Salvador was
producing highly sophisticated drawings, and both of his parents strongly
supported his artistic talent. It was here that his parents built him an art
studio before he entered art school.
Upon recognizing his
immense talent, Salvador Dalí's parents sent him to drawing school at the
Colegio de Hermanos Maristas and the Instituto in Figueres, Spain, in 1916. He
was not a serious student, preferring to daydream in class and stand out as the
class eccentric, wearing odd clothing and long hair. After that first year at
art school, he discovered modern painting in Cadaques while vacationing with
his family. There, he also met Ramon Pichot, a local artist who frequently
visited Paris. The following year, his father organized an exhibition of
Salvador's charcoal drawings in the family home. By 1919, the young artist had
his first public exhibition, at the Municipal Theatre of Figueres.
In 1921, Dalí's mother, Felipa, died of breast cancer. Dalí was 16 years
old at the time, and was devastated by the loss. His father married his
deceased wife's sister, which did not endear the younger Dalí any closer to his
father, though he respected his aunt. Father and son would battle over many
different issues throughout their lives, until the elder Dalí's death.
Art School and Surrealism
In 1922, Dalí
enrolled at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid. He stayed at the school's
student residence and soon brought his eccentricity to a new level, growing
long hair and sideburns, and dressing in the style of English Aesthetes of the
late 19th century. During this time, he was influenced by several different
artistic styles, including Metaphysics and Cubism, which earned him attention
from his fellow students—though he probably didn't yet understand the Cubist
movement entirely.
In 1923, Dalí was
suspended from the academy for criticizing his teachers and allegedly starting
a riot among students over the academy's choice of a professorship. That same
year, he was arrested and briefly imprisoned in Gerona for allegedly supporting
the Separatist movement, though Dalí was actually apolitical at the time (and
remained so throughout most of his life). He returned to the academy in 1926,
but was permanently expelled shortly before his final exams for declaring that
no member of the faculty was competent enough to examine him.
While in school, Dalí
began exploring many forms of art including classical painters like Raphael,
Bronzino and Diego Velázquez (from whom he adopted his signature curled
moustache). He also dabbled in avant-garde art movements such as Dada, a
post-World War I anti-establishment movement. While Dalí's apolitical outlook
on life prevented him from becoming a strict follower, the Dada philosophy
influenced his work throughout his life.
In between 1926 and 1929,
Dalí made several trips to Paris, where he met with influential painters and
intellectuals such as Pablo Picasso, whom he revered. During this time, Dalí
painted a number of works that displayed Picasso's influence. He also met Joan
Miró, the Spanish painter and sculptor who, along with poet Paul Éluard and
painter René Magritte, introduced Dalí to Surrealism. By this time, Dalí was
working with styles of Impressionism, Futurism and Cubism. Dalí's paintings
became associated with three general themes: 1) man's universe and sensations,
2) sexual symbolism and 3) ideographic imagery.
All of this experimentation
led to Dalí's first Surrealistic period in 1929. These oil paintings were small
collages of his dream images. His work employed a meticulous classical
technique, influenced by Renaissance artists, that contradicted the "unreal
dream" space that he created with strange hallucinatory characters. Even
before this period, Dalí was an avid reader of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic
theories. Dalí's major contribution to the Surrealist movement was what he
called the "paranoiac-critical method," a mental exercise of
accessing the subconscious to enhance artistic creativity. Dalí would use the
method to create a reality from his dreams and subconscious thoughts, thus
mentally changing reality to what he wanted it to be and not necessarily what
it was. For Dalí, it became a way of life.
In 1929, Salvador Dalí
expanded his artistic exploration into the world of film-making when he
collaborated with Luis Buñuel on two films, Un Chien andalou (An
Andalusian Dog) and L'Age d'or (The Golden Age,
1930), the former of which is known for its opening scene—a simulated slashing
of a human eye by a razor. Dalí's art appeared several years later in another
film, Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), starring Gregory
Peck and Ingrid Bergman. Dalí's paintings were used in a dream sequence in the
film, and aided the plot by giving clues to solving the secret to character
John Ballantine's psychological problems.
In August 1929, Dalí met
Elena Dmitrievna Diakonova (sometimes written as Elena Ivanorna Diakonova), a
Russian immigrant 10 years his senior. At the time, she was the wife of
Surrealist writer Paul Éluard. A strong mental and physical attraction
developed between Dalí and Diakonova, and she soon left Éluard for her new
lover. Also known as "Gala," Diakonova was Dalí's muse and
inspiration, and would eventually become his wife. She helped balance—or one
might say counterbalance—the creative forces in Dalí's life. With
his wild expressions and fantasies, he wasn't capable of dealing with the
business side of being an artist. Gala took care of his legal and financial
matters, and negotiated contracts with dealers and exhibition promoters. The
two were married in a civil ceremony in 1934.
By 1930, Salvador Dalí had
become a notorious figure of the Surrealist movement. Marie-Laure de Noailles
and Viscount and Viscountess Charles were his first patrons. French
aristocrats, both husband and wife invested heavily in avant-garde art in the
early 20th century. One of Dalí's most famous paintings produced at this
time—and perhaps the best-known Surrealist work—was The Persistence of
Memory (1931). The painting, sometimes called Soft Watches,
shows melting pocket watches in a landscape setting. It is said that the
painting conveys several ideas within the image, chiefly that time is not rigid
and everything is destructible.
By the mid-1930s, Salvador
Dalí had become as notorious for his colorful personality as his artwork, and,
for some art critics, the former was overshadowing the latter. Often sporting
an exaggeratedly long mustache, a cape and a walking stick, Dalí's public
appearances exhibited some unusual behavior. In 1934, art dealer Julian Levy
introduced Dalí to America in a New York exhibition that caused quite a lot of
controversy. At a ball held in his honor, Dalí, in characteristic flamboyant
style, appeared wearing a glass case across his chest which contained a
brassiere.
Expulsion from the Surrealists
As war approached
in Europe, specifically in Spain, Dalí clashed with members of the Surrealist
movement. In a "trial" held in 1934, he was expelled from the group.
He had refused to take a stance against Spanish militant Francisco Franco
(while Surrealist artists like Luis Buñuel, Picasso and Miró had), but it's
unclear whether this directly led to his expulsion. Officially, Dalí was
notified that his expulsion was due to repeated "counter-revolutionary
activity involving the celebration of fascism under Hitler." It is also likely that members of
the movement were aghast at some of Dalí's public antics. However, some art
historians believe that his expulsion had been driven more by his feud with
Surrealist leader André Breton.
Despite his expulsion from
the movement, Dalí continued to participate in several international Surrealist
exhibitions into the 1940s. At the opening of the London Surrealist exhibition
in 1936, he delivered a lecture titled "Fantomes paranoiaques
athentiques" ("Authentic paranoid ghosts") while dressed in a
wetsuit, carrying a billiard cue and walking a pair of Russian wolfhounds. He
later said that his attire was a depiction of "plunging into the
depths" of the human mind.
During World War II, Dalí and
his wife moved to the United States. They remained there until 1948, when they
moved back to his beloved Catalonia. These were important years for Dalí. The
Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York gave him his own retrospective
exhibit in 1941. This was followed by the publication of his
autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942). Also
during this time, Dalí's focus moved away from Surrealism and into his
classical period. His feud with members of the Surrealist movement continued,
but Dalí seemed undaunted. His ever-expanding mind had ventured into new
subjects.
The Dalí Theatre-Museum
Over the next 15
years, Dalí painted a series of 19 large canvases that included scientific,
historical or religious themes. He often called this period "Nuclear
Mysticism." During this time, his artwork took on a technical brilliance
combining meticulous detail with fantastic and limitless imagination. He would
incorporate optical illusions, holography and geometry within his paintings.
Much of his work contained images depicting divine geometry, the DNA, the Hyper
Cube and religious themes of Chastity.
From 1960 to 1974, Dalí
dedicated much of his time to creating the Teatro-Museo Dalí (Dalí
Theatre-Museum) in Figueres. The museum's building had formerly housed the
Municipal Theatre of Figueres, where Dalí saw his public exhibition at the age
of 14 (the original 19th century structure had been destroyed near the end of
the Spanish Civil War). Located across the street from the Teatro-Museo Dalí is
the Church of Sant Pere, where Dalí was baptized and received his first
communion (his funeral would later be held there as well), and just three
blocks away is the house where he was born.
The Teatro-Museo Dalí
officially opened in 1974. The new building was formed from the ruins of the
old and based on one of Dalí's designs, and is billed as the world's largest
Surrealist structure, containing a series of spaces that form a single artistic
object where each element is an inextricable part of the whole. The site is
also known for housing the broadest range of work by the artist, from his
earliest artistic experiences to works that he created during the last years of
this life. Several works on permanent display were created expressly for the
museum.
Also in '74, Dalí dissolved
his business relationship with manager Peter Moore. As a result, all rights to
his collection were sold without his permission by other business managers and
he lost much of his wealth. Two wealthy American art collectors, A. Reynolds
Morse and his wife, Eleanor, who had known Dalí since 1942, set up an
organization called "Friends of Dalí" and a foundation to help boost
the artist's finances. The organization also established the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg,
Florida.
Final Years
In 1980, Dalí was
forced to retire from painting due to a motor disorder that caused permanent
trembling and weakness in his hands. No longer able to hold a paint brush, he'd
lost the ability to express himself the way he knew best. More tragedy struck
in 1982, when Dalí's beloved wife and friend, Gala, died. The two events sent
him into a deep depression. He moved to Pubol, in a castle that he had
purchased and remodeled for Gala, possibly to hide from the public or, as some
speculate, to die. In 1984, Dalí was severely burned in a fire. Due to his
injuries, he was confined to wheelchair. Friends, patrons and fellow artists
rescued him from the castle and returned him to Figueres, making him comfortable
at the Teatro-Museo.
In November 1988, Salvador
Dalí entered a hospital in Figueres with a failing heart. After a brief
convalescence, he returned to the Teatro-Museo. On January 23, 1989, in the
city of his birth, Dalí died of heart failure at the age of 84. His funeral was
held at the Teatro-Museo, where he was buried in a crypt.
Paternity Case and New Exhibition
On June 26, 2017,
a judge in a Madrid court ordered that Dalí’s body be exhumed to settle a
paternity case. A 61-year-old Spanish woman named María Pilar Abel Martínez
claimed that her mother had an affair with the artist while she was working as
a maid for his neighbors in Port Lligat, a town in northeastern Spain.
The judge ordered the
artist’s body to be exhumed because of a "lack of other biological or
personal remains" to compare to Martinez's DNA. The Gala-Salvador Dalí
Foundation, which manages Dalí’s estate, appealed the ruling, but the
exhumation went ahead the following month. In September, results from the
DNA tests revealed that Dalí was not father.
That October, the
artist was back in the news with the announcement of an exhibition at
the Dalí museum in Saint Petersburg, Florida, to celebrate his
friendship and collaboration with Italian fashion designer Elsa
Schiaparelli. The two were known for the joint creation of a "lobster
dress" worn by American socialite Wallis Simpson, who later married
English King Edward VIII.
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