SALVADOR DALI

BIOGRAPHIE

“The culture of the mind will become identified with the culture of desire. »

Salvador Dalí, born in Figueras on May 11, 1904, and died on January 23, 1989, is a Spanish painter, sculptor, engraver, scriptwriter and writer. Icon of surrealism of the 20th century, he developed a unique universe of creative unconsciousness and artistic ‘reverie’.

During his youth he used to frequent a family of artists and intellectuals who would teach him to develop his artistic character. His first creations lead to stories that he draws for his own sister. In 1920, he entered the School of Fine Arts in Madrid with the desire to become a painter.  During this period he wrote down all his feelings like a diary; then the writing process will have an important role til the end of his life.

In 1926 he moved to Paris, capital of ‘the avant-gardes’, where he met  the Surrealists ‘group led by the French author André Breton. As a rebellious artist at the crossroads of the Impressionist, Cubist and Surrealist worlds, he built his own image of an eccentric and whimsical genius. The themes he most frequently addressed were dreams, sexuality, food, his wife Gala as well as religion. During World War II, Dalí and Gala moved to the United States where they will stay there until 1948. These were important years for his carrer. Indeed, The Museum of Modern Art in New York offered Dalí his first retrospective exhibition in 1941. Then, in 1942, Dalí published his first autobiography, untitled The Secret Life.

His work, now belong to the international and established collections and institutions such as the Tate, the Museum of Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.