Salvador Dali

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Salvador Dali



Salvador Dali is recognized as the greatest artist of the surrealist art movement and one of the 20th century art masters. Dali worked hard to establish an image among the public of an eccentric and paranoid genius. His need to “spread confusion, not eliminate it” was a personality trait controversial to many. Despite his wild nature, he is still considered an amazing and accomplished artist, loved by many.

Salvador Dali was born in 1904 to a prestigious notary in Figuera, Northern Spain. As a child, his talent for drawing emerged early and took his first drawing lessons at age ten from well-known Spanish impressionist painter, Ramon Pichot. On his childhood, Dali quotes “At the age of three I wanted to be a female cook, at seven, Napoleon, after that my ambition just kept on growing. I wanted to be Salvador Dali, and nobody else”. He studied art at the Royal Academy of Art in Madrid, but was expelled twice and never took final examinations. Dali believed he was more qualified than the professors. (Web museum)


In 1928, Dali went to Paris where he would meet Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro. Among a group of surrealist artists grouped around Andre Breton (the schoolmaster of surrealism), he established himself as a principal figure. Breton, years later, turned away from Salvador after accusing him of being obsessed with self-presentation and a fascist. (arlentino art auctions)

By 1929 Dali had discovered the personal style that would make him a household name- the realm of the subconscious that becomes conscious during our dreams. His surrealist theory was based on the theories of psychotherapist Dr. Sigmund Freud, of whom he regarded to as his spiritual father. Dali held Freud’s theories of the subconscious very highly, which is made apparent in the sculpture “Le Cabinet Anthropomorhique”. Anthropomorphic, meaning “in the human form”, shows us how our ‘fantasies’ can sometimes take on...