Salvador Dalí

Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí y Domenech

(May 11 1904 – January 23 1989)

Spanish surrealist painter. Dali was an influential surrealist and avant-garde painter. He also experimented with film, sculpture, and photography. Dalí is perhaps best known for his painting of melting clocks, The Persistence of Memory.

Spanish surrealist painter. Dali was an influential surrealist and avant-garde painter. He also experimented with film, sculpture, and photography.

As well as painting, he became involved in film, sculpture and photography.

Dali was born in Catalonia (a region of Spain in 1904) and placed great emphasis on his Arabic lineage (descendant of the Moors). He stated that this Arabic lineage influenced his approach to life and was a factor behind his love of luxury and oriental clothes.

Dali had a habit of doing eccentric things which polarised opinions. His eccentric manner was a reflection of his art and vice versa. The fact that he was always in the limelight made his paintings more famous. He could also display a supreme confidence.

Early life of Dali

Dali was brought up by a strict father, close to the French border of Catalonia. However, his artistic side was encouraged by a domestic servant. He later went to drawing school and by the time he was 15, had his first public art exhibition in Figueres.

In 1922, after the death of his mother, he moved to Madrid, where he devoted more time to art. He experimented with Cubism and Dada, two new strands in modern art. He also became well known for his distinctive, eccentric dress sense. His rebellious attitude culminated in 1926 when he was expelled from art school just before his exams. Dali had complained no one in his art school was sufficiently competent to judge him.

Axel Omar Astillo Aldaz, Osvaldo Cordero Cervantes