Salvador Dali
Salvador Dali was born in Spain in 1904. He studied painting at the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, where he began to receive recognition for his work. In 1928, three of his pieces were shown at the Carnegie International Exhibit in Pittsburgh, and Dali was catapulted into international fame. The following year, Dali met Gala Eluard in Paris, and despite her marriage to poet Paul Eluard, “became Dali’s lover, muse, business manager, and chief inspiration.”(1) Dali soon became a leader in the surrealist movement, but when WWII broke out in 1939, Dali and Gala moved to New York City (as a married couple). This move marked an important shift in her work, as he moved into his “traditional period”. After Gala died in 1982, “Dali’s health began to fail”(1), and he died soon after in 1989.
Dali was an incredibly influencial painter and foremost leader of the surrealist movement. He transitioned fluidly between painting styles and displayed his ever-changing inspirations and maturation. Dali was one of the first painters to paint images that he claimed were “images of his dreams and subconscious”(2), a revolutionary mode of thinking and painting that took the art of the 20th century to a whole new level.
Persistence of Memory 1931
