Dalí, Salvador (1904-89): Spanish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and designer. After passing
through phases of Cubism, Futurism and Metaphysical painting, he joined the Surrealists in 1929 and his
talent for self-publicity rapidly made him the most famous representative of the movement. Throughout his life
he cultivated eccentricity and exhibitionism (one of his most famous acts was appearing in a diving suit at the
opening of the London Surrealist exhibition in 1936), claiming that this was the source of his creative energy.
He took over the Surrealist theory of automatism but transformed it into a more positive method which he
named `critical paranoia'. According to this theory one should cultivate genuine delusion as in clinical paranoia
while remaining residually aware at the back of one's mind that the control of the reason and will has been
deliberately suspended. He claimed that this method should be used not only in artistic and poetical creation
but also in the affairs of daily life. His paintings employed a meticulous academic technique that was
contradicted by the unreal `dream' space he depicted and by the strangely hallucinatory characters of his
imagery. He described his pictures as `hand-painted dream photographs' and had certain favorite and recurring
images, such as the human figure with half-open drawers protruding from it, burning giraffes, and watches bent
and flowing as if made from melting wax (The Persistence of Memory, MOMA, New York; 1931).
In 1937 Dalí visited Italy and adopted a more traditional style; this together with his political views (he was a
supporter of General Franco) led Breton to expel him from the Surrealist ranks. He moved to the USA in 1940
and remained there until 1955. During this time he devoted himself largely to self-publicity; his paintings were
often on religious themes (The Crucifixion of St John of the Cross, Glasgow Art Gallery, 1951), although sexual
subjects and pictures centring on his wife Gala were also continuing preoccupations. In 1955 he returned to
Spain and in old age became a recluse.
Apart from painting, Dalí's output included sculpture, book illustration, jewellery design, and work for the
theatre. In collaboration with the director Luis Buñuel he also made the first Surrealist films---Un chien
andalou (1929) and L'Age d'or (1930)---and he contributed a dream sequence to Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound
(1945). He also wrote a novel, Hidden Faces (1944) and several volumes of flamboyant autobiography. Although
he is undoubtedly one of the most famous artists of the 20th century, his status is controversial; many critics
consider that he did little if anything of consequence after his classic Surrealist works of the 1930s. There are
museums devoted to Dalí's work in Figueras, his home town in Spain, and in St Petersburg in Florida.
1904: Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí was born on May, 11th in Figueras, Catalonia, Spain.
1917: He started to visit the School of Art. First paintings.
1918: First small exhibition in the Theatre.
1921-25: Went to Academy of Arts in Madrid. Conflicts with his teachers.
1925: First stand-alone exibition of Dalí at the Galery of Dalmau.
1926-28: Early explorations of the Surrealism. Dalí in Cadaqués 1927
1929: Gala went into his life. Joined the group of Surrealists in 1930 Gala 1927, and Dalí 1929
1934-37: Dalí had his paranoid-critic-epoch. Dalí and Gala in 1937
1941-44: "Avida Dollars" in America.
1945-49: Dalí the Classic. Dalí and his Daddy in Cadaqués 1948
1950-65: His mystic period. He wrote several books (The secret life of Salvador Dalí).
1963-78: Dalí the Divine - Dalí and the Science.
1979-83: Theory of Disaster.
1982: Gala died.
1989: Dalí, Jan. 23th, died.
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