Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali Essay, Research Paper

Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali was born on May 11th, 1904. The palace of birth was a small town about an hour drive from Barcelona called Figueres. His Father was a prosperous notary, who also supplied his family with a summer home Cadaques. This summer home was also the place for Dali s first studio which his parents arranged for him. He found an interrest in art very early and decide to attend the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. His success came fast. When he was only 24 three of his paintings, including the well know basket of bread , was shown at the Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh in 1928. That following year Dali joined the Paris surrealist group led by Andre Breton. The same year he held his first one man show in Paris. During the time in Paris he met, the wife of poet Paul Eluard, Gala. She became his sourse of inspiration and lover, she also handled his business. They later married with a civil ceremony. Dali had now become the leader of the surrealist group, but as the war came closer he was kicked out beacause of his political thoughts.

Around 1940 Dali moved into a new phase in his carrier, now known as his classical period . He was now demonstrating a preoccupation with science and religon. World War II came and Dali took his beloved Gala and escaped to the United States. Here Dali got his first real exhibit in 1941. It took place at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This was fallowed bu his autobiography The Secret Life of Salvador Dali . As Dali moved away from Surrealism and into his classic period , he began his series of 18 large canvases, many involving scientific, historical or religious themes. Among the bestknown of these works are The Hallucinogenic Toreador and The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. When he returned from the States he picked up the Catholic faith of his youth and he and Gala were married in a second ceremony in 1958, this time in a chapel near Girona, Spain.

In 1974 Dali opened the Teatro Museo Dali in his home town Figueres. After opening the museum he held to exhibits one in London and one in Paris. When his wife died in 1982 Dali s health got worse. The years after his wifes death he spent totally secluded

from the rest of the world in his house in Figueres. The fact that he was burned in a fire in his home did not help much. Two years later he had a pace maker inplanted. This only delayed the process. Because of heart failure Dali died on January 23, 1989. A tragic event in modern art history.