Salvador Dali

1904 - 1989

Spanish (Figueras, Spain - Figueras, Spain)

Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. He was a child prodigy and studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Madrid. However, he never completed his final exams. He declared that no member of the faculty was competent enough to test him. In 1928 he moved to Paris, where he developed his own style over the next few years. At this time, Dalí made a number of works heavily influenced by Picasso and Miró. By the early 1930s Dalí became a principle player in the Surrealist movement. He had his first one-person show in New York by art dealer Julian Levy in 1933. To evade WWII in 1940 he moved to the US permanently where he became a favorite of American high society with his affinity for partaking in unusual and eccentric behaviors. Dalí integrated ideas from science, religion, history merged with the painting styles of some of the Renaissance masters into his work. He used both classical and modernist techniques, sometimes in separate works, and sometimes combined. During his lifetime he had two museums dedicated exclusively to his work. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. Dalí’s expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.