Salvador Dali
When we think of surrealism, one of the first artists who come to mind is Salvador Dali, a 20th century Spanish artist. Along with being a painter, Dali also dabbled in many other art forms, including photography, film, theatre and even passion. Dali even wrote a novel called Hidden Faces. He was known to be quite a flamboyant character, and had a very famous mustache. Of course, his mustache was not nearly as famous as his art, especially The Persistence of Memory, the painting that started the melting clocks craze.
Dali’s Early Years
Born Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali I Domenech, Dali came into the world on May 11, 1904. At the age of five, he was informed by his parents that they thought he was the reincarnation of his brother who had passed away shortly before Dali’s birth. Dali’s education in art began when it was a young child, and he exhibited so much talent that his father held an exhibition of his son’s charcoal sketches in 1917, with his first public exhibition to follow in 1919. Three years later, Dali went to Madrid to study art at the Academia de San Fernando School of Fine Arts.
While he was studying in Madrid, Dali met filmmaker Luis Bunuel and poet Federico Garcia Lorca, and he would end up collaborating with both of them later in his life. In his early years as a painter, he experimented with Cubism and Dadaist styles. He became so proud of his work that he ended up becoming expelled, because he said that there were no instructors who were qualified to test his skills as an artist. It was around this time that he traveled to Paris, and met his artistic hero, Pablo Picasso.
After leaving the art school, Dali collaborated with his friend Bunel in 1929 on a film titled Un Chien Andalou, translated in English as An Andalusion Dog. That same year, he met Gala, who he married in 1934, followed by a second, Catholic ceremony in 1958. It was during these years when he really started to get into the surrealist style and develop his own style. In 1931, he completed his most famous work, The Persistence of Memory.
Dali’s Later Years
Dali spent the 1940′s in the United States before moving back to his birthplace. He became ill, and in 1980, he had a deterioration of the nervous system. This was caused by drugs given to him by his wife that were not prescribed to him. Gala died in 1982, and Dali began to really slip at this point, seemingly having lost his will to live. He did attempt suicide on a few occasions, and died of heart failure in 1989.
Salvador Dali’s work lives on, and is very prominent today. You see recreations of his famous paintings, especially melting clock artwork, all over the world. Salvador Dali was an artist whose work really stands the test of time, and seems to be even more popular today than ever.
