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Salvador Dalí
Dalí, photo by Carl Van Vechten, November 29, 1939
Education	San Fernando School of Fine Arts, Madrid
Known for	Painting, Drawing, Photography, Sculpture
Movement	Cubism, Dada, Surrealism

Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí Domènech or Salvador Felip Jacint Dalí Domènech (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989), known popularly as Salvador Dalí, was a Catalan-Spanish artist who became one of the most important painters of the 20th century. A skilled draftsman, he is best known for his surrealist work identified by its striking, bizarre, dreamlike images. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. In addition to painting, his artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, photography, and an Academy Award-nominated short cartoon, "Destino," on which he collaborated with Walt Disney; it was released posthumously in 2003.

An artist of great imagination, Dalí had an affinity for doing unusual things to draw attention to himself. This sometimes irked those who loved his art as much as it annoyed his critics, since his eccentric manner sometimes drew more public attention than his artwork.

Later years in Catalonia

Dalí spent his remaining years back in his beloved Catalonia starting in 1949. The fact that he chose to live in Spain while it was ruled by Franco drew criticism from progressives and many other artists. As such, probably at least some of the common dismissal of Dalí's later works had more to do with politics than the actual merits of the works themselves. In 1959, André Breton organized an exhibit called, Homage to Surrealism, celebrating the Fortieth Anniversary of Surrealism, which contained works by Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Enrique Tábara, and Eugenio Granell. Breton vehemently fought against the inclusion of Dalí's Sistine Madonna in the International Surrealism Exhibition in New York the following year.

Late in his career, Dalí did not confine himself to painting but experimented with many unusual or novel media and processes: he made bulletist works and was among the first artists to employ holography in an artistic manner. Several of his works incorporate optical illusions. In his later years, young artists like Andy Warhol proclaimed Dalí an important influence on pop art. Dalí also had a keen interest in natural science and mathematics. This is manifested in several of his paintings, notably in the 1950s when he painted his subjects as composed of rhinoceros horns, signifying divine geometry (as the rhinoceros horn grows according to a logarithmic spiral) and chastity (as Dalí linked the rhinoceros to the Virgin Mary). Dalí was also fascinated by DNA and the hypercube; the latter, a 4-dimensional cube, is featured in the painting Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus).

In 1960, Dalí began work on the Dalí Theatre and Museum 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. He found time, however, to design the Chupa Chups logo in 1969. Also in 1969, He was responsible for creating the advertising aspect of the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest, and created a large metal sculpture, which stood on the stage at the Teatro Real in Madrid.

In 1982, King Juan Carlos of Spain bestowed on Dalí the title Marquis of Pubol, for which Dalí later paid him back by giving him a drawing (Head of Europa, which would turn out to be Dalí's final drawing) after the king visited him on his deathbed.

Gala died on June 10, 1982. After Gala's death, Dalí lost much of his will to live. He deliberately dehydrated himself—possibly as a suicide attempt, possibly in an attempt to put himself into a state of suspended animation, as he had read that some microorganisms could do. He moved from Figueres to the castle in Pubol which he had bought for Gala and was the site of her death. In 1984, a fire broke out in his bedroom under unclear circumstances—possibly a suicide attempt by Dalí, possibly simple negligence by his staff. In any case, Dalí was rescued and returned to Figueres where a group of his friends, patrons, and fellow artists saw to it that he was comfortable living in his Theater-Museum for his final years.

There have been allegations that his guardians forced Dalí to sign blank canvases that would later (even after his death) be used and sold as originals. As a result, art dealers tend to be wary of late works attributed to Dalí. He died of heart failure at Figueres on January 23, 1989 at the age of 84, and he is buried in the crypt of his Teatro Museo in Figueres.

Symbolism

Dalí employed extensive symbolism in his work. For instance, the hallmark soft watches that first appear in The Persistence of Memory suggest Einstein's theory that time is relative and not fixed. The idea for clocks functioning symbolically in this way came to Dalí when he was staring at a runny piece of Camembert cheese during a hot day in August.

The elephant is also a recurring image in Dalí's works, appearing first in his 1944 work Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. The elephants, inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture in Rome of an elephant carrying an obelisk, are portrayed "with long, multi-jointed, almost invisible legs of desire" along with obelisks on their backs. Coupled with the image of their brittle legs, these encumbrances, noted for their phallic overtones, create a sense of phantom reality. "The elephant is a distortion in space," one analysis explains, "its spindly legs contrasting the idea of weightlessness with structure."

The egg is another common Dalíesque image. He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love; it appears in The Great Masturbator and The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. Various animals appear throughout his work as well: ants point to death, decay, and immense sexual desire; the snail is connected to the human head (he saw a snail on a bicycle outside Freud’s house when he first met Sigmund Freud); and locusts are a symbol of waste and fear.

His fascination with ants has a strange explanation. When Dalí was a young boy he had a pet bat. One day he discovered his bat dead, covered in ants. He thus developed a fascination and fear of ants.

Endeavors outside painting

Dalí was a versatile artist, not limiting himself only to painting in his artistic endeavors. Some of his more popular artistic works are sculptures and other objects, and he is also noted for his contributions to theatre, fashion, and photography, among other areas.

Two of the most popular objects of the surrealist movement were the Lobster Telephone and the Mae West Lips Sofa, completed by Dalí in 1936 and 1937, respectively. The Scottish patron Edward James commissioned both of these pieces from Dalí; James, an eccentric who had inherited a large English estate when he was five, was one of the foremost supporters of the surrealists in the 1930s. "Lobsters and telephones had strong sexual connotations for " according to the display caption for the Lobster Telephone at the Tate Gallery, "and he drew a close analogy between food and sex." The telephone was functional, and James purchased four of them from Dalí to replace the phones in his retreat home. One now appears at the Tate Gallery; the second can be found at the German Telephone Museum in Frankfurt; the third belongs to the Edward James Foundation; and the fourth is at the National Gallery of Australia. The wood and satin Mae West Lips Sofa was shaped after the lips of actress Mae West, who Dalí apparently found fascinating. West was previously the subject of Dalí's 1935 painting The Face of Mae West. The Mae West Lips Sofa currently resides at the Brighton and Hove Museum in England.

In theatre, Dalí is remembered for constructing the scenery for García Lorca's 1927 romantic play Mariana Pineda. For Bacchanale (1939), a ballet based on and set to the music of Richard Wagner's 1845 opera Tannhäuser, Dalí provided both the set design and the libretto. Bacchanale was followed by set designs for Labyrinth in 1941 and The Three-Cornered Hat in 1949.

Dalí also delved into the realms of filmmaking, most notably playing large roles in the production of Un Chien Andalou, a 17-minute French art film co-written with Luis Buñuel which is widely remembered for the graphic scene of the slicing open of a human eyeball with a razor. Dalí's other major film work is the Disney cartoon production Destino; clocking in at a mere six minutes, it contains dream-like images of strange figures flying and walking about. Dalí also designed the dream sequence in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945 film) which heavily delves into themes of psychoanalysis.

Dalí built a repertoire in the fashion and photography industries as well. In fashion, his cooperation with the Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli is well-known, where Dalí was hired by Schiaparelli to produce a white dress with a lobster print. Other designs Dalí made for her include a shoe-shaped hat and a pink belt with lips for a buckle. He was also involved in creating textile designs and perfume bottles. With Christian Dior in 1950, Dalí created a special "costume for the year 2045." Photographers with whom he collaborated include Man Ray, Brassaï, Cecil Beaton, and Philippe Halsman. With Man Ray and Brassaï, Dalí photographed nature, while with the others he explored a range of obscure topics, including with Halsman the Dalí Atomica series (1948)—inspired by his painting Leda Atomica—which in one photograph depicts "a painter’s easel, three cats, a bucket of water and Dalí himself floating in the air."

References to Dalí in the context of science are made in terms of his fascination with the paradigm shift that accompanied the birth of quantum mechanics in the twentieth century. Inspired by Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle, in 1958 he wrote in his "Anti-Matter Manifesto": "In the Surrealist period I wanted to create the iconography of the interior world and the world of the marvelous, of my father Freud. Today the exterior world and that of physics, has transcended the one of psychology. My father today is Dr. Heisenberg." In this respect, The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, which appeared in 1954, in hearkening back to The Persistence of Memory and portraying that painting in fragmentation and disintegration, summarizes Dalí's acknowledgment of the new science.

Architectural achievements include his Port Lligat house near Cadaqués as well as the Dream of Venus surrealist pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair which contained within it a number of unusual sculptures and statues. His literary works include The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942), Diary of a Genius (1952–1963), and Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution (1927–1933).The artist worked extensively in the graphic arts producing many etchings and lithographs. While his early work in printmaking is equal in quality to his important paintings as he grew older he unfortunately looked at printmaking as a money making scheme only and would sell the rights to images and not even be involved to in the print production itself. In addition a large number of unauthorized fakes were produced in the eighties and ninties thus further confusing the Dalí print market.

Politics and personality

The politics of Salvador Dalí played a significant role in his emergence as an artist. He has sometimes been portrayed as a fascist supporter. The reality is probably somewhat more complex; in any event, he was probably not an anti-semite, given that he was a friendly acquaintance of famed architect and designer Paul Laszlo, who was ethnically Jewish.

In his youth, Dalí embraced for a time both anarchism and communism. His writings account various anecdotes of making radical political statements more to shock listeners than from any deep conviction, which was in keeping with Dalí's allegiance to the Dada movement. When he fell into the circle of mostly Marxist surrealists who denounced as enemies the monarchists on one hand and the anarchists on the other, Dalí explained to them that he personally was an anarcho-monarchist.

With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Dalí fled from fighting and refused to align himself with any group. After his return to Catalonia after World War II, Dalí became closer to the Franco regime. Some of Dalí's statements supported the repression enacted under Franco's fascist regime, congratulating Franco for his actions aimed "at clearing Spain of destructive forces." Dalí sent telegrams to Franco, "praising him for signing death warrants for political prisoners." Dalí even painted a portrait of Franco's grand-daughter. It is impossible to determine whether his tributes to Franco were sincere or whimsical; he also once sent a telegram praising the Conducător, Romanian Communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu, for his adoption of a sceptre as part of his regalia. The Romanian daily newspaper Scînteia published it, without suspecting its mocking aspect. Dalí's eccentricities were tolerated by the Franco regime, since not many world-famous artists would accept living in Spain. One of Dalí's few possible bits of open disobedience was his continued praise of Federico García Lorca even in the years when Lorca's works were banned.

In Carlos Lozano's biography, Sex, Surrealism, Dalí and Me, produced by the collaboration of Clifford Thurlow, Lozano makes it clear that Dalí never stopped being a surrealist. As Dalí said of himself: "the only difference between me and the surrealists is that I am a surrealist." Everything, including his support for Franco and telegrams to Ceauşescu, must be seen in this light. Dalí is famous for having said "every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dalí."

Listing of selected works

Dalí produced over 1,500 paintings in his career, in addition to producing illustrations for books, lithographs, designs for theater sets and costumes, a great number of drawings, dozens of sculptures, and various other projects, including an animated cartoon for Disney. Below is a chronological sample of important and representative work, as well as some notes on what Dalí did in particular years:

• 1910 Landscape Near Figueras
• 1913 Vilabertin
• 1916 Fiesta in Figueras (begun 1914)
• 1917 View of Cadaqués with Shadow of Mount Pani
• 1918 Crepuscular Old Man (begun 1917)
• 1919 Port of Cadaqués (Night) (begun 1918) and Self-portrait in the Studio
• 1920 The Artist’s Father at Llane Beach and View of Portdogué (Port Aluger)
• 1921 The Garden of Llaner (Cadaqués) (begun 1920) and Self-portrait
• 1922 Cabaret Scene and Night Walking Dreams
• 1923 Self Portrait with L'Humanite and Cubist Self Portrait with La Publicitat
• 1924 Still Life (Syphon and Bottle of Rum) (for García Lorca) and Portrait of Luis Buñuel
• 1925 Large Harlequin and Small Bottle of Rum, and a series of fine portraits of his sister Anna Maria, most notably Figure At A Window
• 1926 Basket of Bread and Girl from Figueres
• 1927 Composition With Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) and Honey is Sweeter Than Blood (his first important surrealist work)
• 1929 Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog) film in collaboration with Luis Buñuel, The Lugubrious Game, The Great Masturbator and The First Days of Spring
• 1930 L'Âge d'Or (The Golden Age) film in collaboration with Luis Buñuel
• 1931 The Persistence of Memory (his most famous work, featuring the "melting clocks"), The Old Age of William Tell, and William Tell and Gradiva
• 1932 The Spectre of Sex Appeal, The Birth of Liquid Desires, Anthropomorphic Bread, and Fried Eggs on the Plate without the Plate. The Invisible Man (begun 1929) completed (although not to Dalí's own satisfaction).

• 1933 Retrospective Bust of a Woman (mixed media sculpture collage) and Portrait of Gala With Two Lamb Chops Balanced on Her Shoulder, Gala in the window
• 1934 The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table and A Sense of Speed
• 1935 Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet’s Angelus and The Face of Mae West
• 1936 Autumn Cannibalism, Lobster Telephone, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) and two works titled Morphological Echo (the first of which began in 1934).
• 1937 Metamorphosis of Narcissus, Swans Reflecting Elephants, The Burning Giraffe, Sleep, The Enigma of Hitler, and Mae West Lips Sofa
• 1938 The Sublime Moment and Apparition of a Face and Fruit Dish on the Beach
• 1940 The Face of War
• 1943 The Poetry of America and Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man
• 1944 Galarina and Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bumblebee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening
• 1944-1948 Hidden Faces, a novel
• 1945, Basket of Bread–Rather Death Than Shame and Fountain of Milk Flowing Uselessly on Three Shoes; This year Dalí collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on a dream sequence to the film Spellbound, to mutual dissatisfaction.
• 1946 The Temptation of St. Anthony
• 1949 Leda Atomica and The Madonna of Port Lligat. Dalí returned to Catalonia this year.
• 1951 Christ of St. John of the Cross and Exploding Raphaelesque Head.
• 1954 Corpus Hypercubus Crucifixion, Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity and The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (begun in 1952).
• 1955 The Sacrament of the Last Supper, Lonesome Echo, record album cover for Jackie Gleason
• 1956 Still Life Moving Fast, Rinoceronte vestido con puntillas
• 1958 The Rose
• 1959 The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.
• 1960 Dalí began work on the Teatro-Museo Gala Salvador Dalí
• 1965 Dalí donates a gouache, ink and pencil drawing of the Crucifixion to the Rikers Island jail in New York City. The drawing hung in the inmate dining room from 1965 to 1981.

• 1967 Tuna Fishing
• 1969 Chupa Chups logo
• 1970 The Hallucinogenic Toreador
• 1972 La Toile Daligram
• 1976 Gala Contemplating the Sea
• 1977 Dalí's Hand Drawing Back the Golden Fleece in the Form of a Cloud to Show Gala Completely Nude, Very Far Away Behind the Sun (stereoscopical pair of paintings)
• 1983 Dalí completed his final painting, The Swallow's Tail.
• 2003 Destino, an animated cartoon which was originally a collaboration between Dalí and Walt Disney, is released. Production on Destino began in 1945.

The largest collections of Dalí's work are at the Dalí Theatre and Museum in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, followed by the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the Salvador Dalí Gallery in Pacific Palisades, California. Espace Salvador Dalí on Montmartre in Paris, France contains a large collection of his drawings and smaller sculptures.

The unlikeliest venue for Dalí's work was the Rikers Island jail in New York City; a sketch of the Crucifixion he donated to the jail hung in the inmate dining room for 16 years before it was moved to the prison lobby for safekeeping. The drawing was stolen in March 2003 by 4 prison guards and has not been recovered.

Notable students/disciples

• Edgar Froese
• Ernst Fuchs
• H. R. Giger
• Jean-Claude Gaugy
• Mark Ryden
• Antonio Roybal
• Elsa Schiaparelli
• Onik Sahakian
• Fray Angelico Chavez

References

1. ^ Dalí, Salvador. (2000) Dalí: 16 Art Stickers, Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-41074-9.
2. Saladyga, Stephen Francis. "The Mindset of Salvador Dalí". lamplighter (Niagara University). Vol. 1 No. 3, Summer 2006. Retrieved July 22, 2006.
3. ^ Navarro, Vicente, Ph.D. "The Jackboot of Dada: Salvador Dalí, Fascist". Counterpunch. December 6, 2003. Retrieved July 22, 2006.
4. López, Ignacio Javier. The Old Age of William Tell (A study of Buñuel's Tristana). MLN 116 (2001): 295–314.
5. The Phantasmagoric Universe – Espace Dalí À Montmartre. Bonjour Paris. Retrieved on August 22, 2006.
6. The History and Development of Holography. Holophile. Retrieved on August 22, 2006.
7. Hello, Dalí. Carnegie Magazine. Retrieved on August 22, 2006.
8. Elliott King in Dawn Ades (ed.), Dalí, Bompiani Arte, Milan, 2004, p. 456.
9. "Dalí Resting at Castle After Injury in Fire". The New York Times. September 1, 1984. Retrieved July 22, 2006
10. Cite error: The named reference olga was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
11. Mark Rogerson (1989). The Dalí Scandal: An Investigation. Victor Gollancz. ISBN 0575037865.
12. Cite error: The named reference Conquete was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
13. Salvador Dalí, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (New York: Dial Press, 1942), p. 317.
14. Michael Taylor in Dawn Ades (ed.), Dalí (Milan: Bompiani, 2004), p. 342
15. ^ Dalí Universe Collection. County Hall Gallery. Retrieved on July 28, 2006.
16. ^ "Salvador Dalí's symbolism". County Hall Gallery. Retrieved on July 28, 2006
17. ^ Lobster telephone. National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved on August 4, 2006.
18. Tate Collection | Lobster Telephone by Salvador Dalí. Tate Online. Retrieved on August 4, 2006.
19. Cite error: The named reference unbound was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
20. Federico García Lorca. Pegásos. Retrieved on August 8, 2006.
21. ^ Dalí Rotterdam Museum Boijmans. Paris Contemporary Designs. Retrieved on August 8, 2006.
22. Past Exhibitions. Haggerty Museum of Art. Retrieved August 8, 2006.
23. ^ Dalí: Explorations into the domain of science. The Triangle Online. Retrieved August 8, 2006.
24. Cite error: The named reference coversations was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
25. Cite error: The named reference artcyclopedia was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
26. The Surreal World of Salvador Dalí. Smithsonian Magazine. 2005. Retrieved August 31, 2006.
27. "The Salvador Dalí Online Exhibit". MicroVision. Retrieved 2006-06-13.
28. ^ "Dalí picture sprung from jail". BBC. March 2, 2003. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

Galleries

• Dali-Gallery.com – Over 1500 high quality paintings, drawings, watercolors and objects
• Gallery (uffs.net)
• Olga's Gallery: Salvador Dalí
• Virtual Dalí – Gallery of Salvador Dalí's artwork (several hundred images); Uses Macromedia Flash

Biographies and news

• Biography and works of Salvador Dalí – From the Rotten Library
• Dalí's surreal wind-powered organ lacks only a rhinoceros
• Documentary on Google Video about Salvador Dalí (runtime 75 minutes)
• Fantasyarts.net: Salvador Dalí – Historical site
• MundoArte: Biography of Salvador Dalí
• Salvador Dalí: a Genius? – Article from Bohème Magazine
• UbuWeb: Salvador Dalí – Interview and bank advertisement.

Other links

• Erotica in Art - Salvador Dalí in the "History of Art"
• Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation English language site
• Salvador Dalí: a Migraineur?
• St. Petersburg Dalí Museum
• A brush with Dalí's Muse, Guardian article, May 2005

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• Salvador Dalí
• Modern artists
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• Surrealism
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• 1989 deaths