Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí (1904‑1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist whose prodigious output spanned painting, sculpture, film, photography, fashion and literary pursuits, making him one of the most versatile figures of the twentieth‑century art world. Born on 11 May 1904 in the Catalan town of Figueres, he displayed remarkable technical skill from an early age, studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid before immersing himself in the avant‑garde circles of Barcelona and Paris. In the late 1920s he embraced Cubism and Dada, but it was his 1929 admission to the Surrealist group that launched his career into global prominence; his paranoiac‑critical method allowed him to render dream‑like visions with astonishingly precise draftsmanship. The 1931 masterpiece The Persistence of Memory introduced the iconic melting clocks, symbolising the fluidity of time and securing his reputation as a genius of visual paradox. Dalí’s collaborations with Luis Buñuel on Un Chien Andalou and later with Walt Disney on the unfinished Destino illustrate his experimental spirit across media, while his flamboyant public persona—complete with a waxed mustache, theatrical costumes and eccentric stunts—often eclipsed the art itself in popular headlines. After fleeing wartime Europe, he settled in the United States (1940‑48), where he produced the dream sequence for Hitchcock’s Spellbound and wrote the provocative autobiography The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí. Returning to Spain, he embraced Catholic mysticism, creating works such as The Madonna of Port Lligat and developing the “nuclear mysticism” style that fused scientific imagery with religious symbolism. Throughout his life he remained a polarising figure, admired for his technical brilliance and condemned for his political ambiguities, yet his influence endures in contemporary pop culture, fashion, and the works of artists like Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.