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Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí (born May 11, 1904, in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, died January 23, 1989) was an important surrealist painter.

His work is noted for their striking combination of bizarre dreamlike images with excellent draftmanship and painterly skills influenced by the Renaissance masters. Dalí became as famous for his eccentric theatrical manner as his artwork, especially in his later years.

Biography

Dalí attended Municipal Drawing School, where he first received formal art training. In 1916 Dalí discovered modern painting on a summer vacation with the Pichot family. The next year Dalí's father organized an exhibition of his charcoal drawings in their family home. He had his first public exhibition at the Municipal Theater in Figueres in 1919.

He moved to Madrid, where he studied at the Academy of Arts (Academia de San Fernando). He experimented with Cubism (which arguably he did not completely understand) and Dadaism (which arguably influnced his work throughout his life). He became close friends with poet Federico García Lorca at this time. Dalí was expelled from the Academy in 1926 shortly before his final exams when he stated that no one on the faculty was competent enough to examine him.

1929 was an important year for Dalí. He collaborated with Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel on the short film Un Chien Andalou and met his muse and future wife, Gala Eluard, born Helena Deluvina Diakinoff, a Russian immigrant eleven years his senior who was then married to the surrealist poet Paul Eluard. In the same year, Dali had his first professional exhibition; and joined the Surrealist group in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris.

In 1939, his fellow Surrealist artists officially expelled Dalí from the Surrealist group for political reasons; Marxism was the prefered doctrine in the movement, while Dalí declared himself to be an "Anarcho-Monarchist". Dalí replied to his expulsion by saying "Surrealism is me." Other Surrealists henceforth would speak of Dalí in the past tence, as if he were dead.

As war started in Europe, Dalí and Gala moved to America in 1940, where they lived for eight years. In 1942 he published his entertaining autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí.

He spent his remaining years back in his beloved Catalonia. The fact that he chose to live in Spain while it was ruled by Facist dictator Francisco Franco drew critism from progressives and many other artists. Some think that the common dismissal of Dalí's later works has more to do with politics than the actual merits of the works themselves.

In 1958, Dalí and Gala were married, after having lived together for nearly 30 years. Gala died on June 10, 1982.

In Dalí's later years, young artists like Andy Warhol proclaimed Dalí an important influence on pop art.

Chronology of Notable Works

In 1931, Dalí painted The Persistence of Memory.

In 1936, he painted Autumn Cannibalism and Soft Construction with Beans Premonition of Civil War.

In 1945, Dalí collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on a dream sequence to the film Spellbound, to mutual dissatisfaction.

In 1949, he painted Leda Atomica and The Madonna of Port Lligat, and returned to Europe.

In 1951, he painted Christ of St. John of the Cross and Exploding Rephaelesque Head.

In 1959, Dalí painted The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.

In 1960, began work on the Theater-Museum Gala Salvador Dalí in his home town of Figueres; it was his largest single project and the main focus of his energy through 1974. He continued to make additions through the mid 1980s.

In 1976, he painted Gala Contemplating the Sea.

In 1983, he completed his final painting, The Swallow's Tail.

Salvador Dali died on January 23, 1989 of heart failure at Figueres, Spain. He is buried in the crypt of his Teatro Museum in Figueres.

The two largest collections of Dalí's work are the Salvador Dalí museum in St. Petersburg, Florida and the Teatro Museo Gala Salvador Dalí in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain.