... Salvador Dali ...

Dali, full name: Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali i Domenech, was born on May 11, 1904, in the small agricultural town of Figueres, Spain, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. This meant that he lived only sixteen miles from the French border in the principality of Catalonia. He was the son of a prosperous notary, and spent his childhood in Figueres and at the family's summer home in the coastal fishing village of Cadaques. His first studio was built for him by his parents and was situated in Cadaques. For most of his adult life he lived in a fantastic villa in nearby Port Lligat.

As a young man, Dali attended the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. Early recognition of Dali's talent came with his first one-man show, held in Barcelona in 1925. He recieved international fame when three of his paintings were shown in the third annual Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh in 1928. In a way, this was was his prime 'starting block'.

After this, Dali went to Paris the following year, again holding a one-man show, and at this point Dali joined the Paris Surrealist Group. It was in this same year that Dali met Gala Eluard when she visited him in Cadaques with her husband, the French poet Paul Eluard. She became Dali's lover, muse, business manager, and the source of inspiration for many of Dali's greatest works. They were married in 1934 at a civil ceremony and made their first trip to America.

Dali emerged as a leader of the Surrealist movement and his painting, Persistence of Memory (1931) is still one of the best known surrealist works. But, as war approached, the apolitical Dali clashed with the Surrealists and he was expelled during a trial conducted by the group in 1934. Although he did exhibit works in international surrealist exhibitions throughout the decade, asserting that: "le Surrealisme c'est moi" by 1940 he was ready to move into a new era, one that he termed "classic."

During World War II Dali and his wife, Gala, took refuge in the United States, returning after the war's end to Spain. His international reputation continued to grow, based as much on his flamboyance and flair for publicity as on his prodigious output of paintings, graphic works, and book illustrations; and designs for jewellrey, textiles, clothing, costumes, shop interiors, and stage sets. His writings include poetry, fiction, and a controversial autobiography, `The Secret Life of Salvador Dali'.

Dali returned to 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.

Dali produced two films - `An Andalusian Dog'(1928) and `The Golden Age'(1930) - in collaboration with Bunuel. Considered surrealist classics, they are filled with grotesque images. `The Persistence of Memory', painted in 1931, is perhaps the most widely recognized surrealist painting in the world.

In 1974 Dali opened the Teatro Museo Dali in Figueres. This was followed by retrospectives in Paris and London at the end of the decade.

After Gala's death in 1982, Dali's health began to fail. It deteriorated further after he was severely burned in a fire in Gala's castle in Pubol, Spain, in 1984. Two years later, a pacemaker was implanted. Much of the years 1980-89 were spent in almost total seclusion, first in Pubol and later in his private room in the Torre Galatea, adjacent to the Teatro Museo Dali.

On January 23, 1989, Salvador Dali died in a hospital in Figueres from heart failure and respiratory complications.