The Master

Savador DomingoFelipe Jacinto Dali

INTRODUCTION

Salvador Dali was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work. Born in Figueres in Catalonia, DalÃ received his formal education in fine arts in Madrid. Influenced by Impressionism and the Renaissance masters from a young age, he became increasingly attracted to Cubism and Avant-grade movements.

He moved closer to Surrealism in the late 1920s and joined the Surrealist group in 1929, soon becoming one of its leading exponents. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931. DalÃ lived in France throughout the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) before leaving for the United States in 1940 where he achieved commercial success. He returned to Spain in 1948 where he announced his return to the Catholic faith and developed his "nuclear mysticism" style, based on his interest in classicism, mysticism, and recent scientific developments.

DalÃ's artistic repertoire included painting, sculpture, film, graphic arts, animation, fashion, and photography, at times in collaboration with other artists. He also wrote fiction, poetry, autobiography, essays, and criticism. Major themes in his work include dreams, the subconscious, sexuality, religion, science and his closest personal relationships. To the dismay of those who held his work in high regard, and to the irritation of his critics, his eccentric and ostentatious public behavior often drew more attention than his artwork.

His public support for the Francoist regime, his commercial activities and the quality and authenticity of some of his late works have also been controversial.^[His life and work were an important influence on other Surrealists, pop art, popular culture, and contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.

Early life

Salvador DalÃ was born on 11 May 1904, at 8:45 am,^[9] on the first floor of Carrer Monturiol, 20 in the town of Figueres, in the Emporda region, close to the French border in Catalonia, Spain. DalÃ's older brother, who had also been named Salvador (born 12 October 1901), had died of gastroenteritis nine months earlier, on 1 August 1903. His father, Salvador Luca Rafael Aniceto DalÃ CusÃ (1872-1950) was a middle-class lawyer and notary,an anti-clerical atheist and Catalan federalist, whose strict disciplinary approach was tempered by his wife, Felipa DomÃ¨nech FerrÃés (1874-1921), who encouraged her son's artistic endeavors. In the summer of 1912, the family moved to the top floor of Carrer Monturiol 24 (presently 10). DalÃ later attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to an "Arab lineage", claiming that his ancestors were descendants of the Moors.

DalÃ was haunted by the idea of his dead brother throughout his life, mythologizing him in his writings and art. DalÃ said of him, "[we] resembled each other like two drops of water, but we had different reflections." He "was probably the first version of myself but conceived too much in the absolute". Images of his brother would reappear in his later works, including Portrait of My Dead Brother (1963).

DalÃ also had a sister, Ana MarÃa, who was three years younger, and whom DalÃ painted 12 times between 1923 and 1926.

His childhood friends included future FC Barcelona footballers Emili Sagi-Barba and Josep Samitier. During holidays at the Catalan resort town of Cadaques, the trio played football together.
DalÃ attended the Municipal Drawing School at Figueres in 1916 and also discovered modern painting on a summer vacation trip to CadaquÃés with the family of Ramon Pichot, a local artist who made regular trips to Paris. The next year, DalÃ's father organized an exhibition of his charcoal drawings in their family home. He had his first public exhibition at the Municipal Theatre in Figueres in 1918, a site he would return to decades later. In early 1921 the Pichot family introduced DalÃ to Futurism. That same year, DalÃ's uncle Anselm DomÃ¨nech, who owned a bookshop in Barcelona, supplied him with books and magazines on Cubism and contemporary art.

His childhood friends included future FC Barcelona footballers Emili Sagi-Barba and Josep Samitier. During holidays at the Catalan resort town of Cadaques, the trio played football together.

DalÃ attended the Municipal Drawing School at Figueres in 1916 and also discovered modern painting on a summer vacation trip to CadaquÃés with the family of Ramon Pichot, a local artist who made regular trips to Paris. The next year, DalÃ's father organized an exhibition of his charcoal drawings in their family home. He had his first public exhibition at the Municipal Theatre in Figueres in 1918, a site he would return to decades later. In early 1921 the Pichot family introduced DalÃ to Futurism.

That same year, DalÃ's uncle Anselm DomÃ¨nech, who owned a bookshop in Barcelona, supplied him with books and magazines on Cubism and contemporary art. On 6 February 1921, DalÃ's mother died of uterine cancer. DalÃ was 16 years old and later said his mother's death "was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her... I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul." After the death of Dali's mother, DalÃ's father married her sister. DalÃ did not resent this marriage, because he had great love and respect for his aunt.

Madrid, Barcelona, and Paris

In 1922, DalÃ moved into the Residencia de Estudiantes (Students' Residence) in Madrid and studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts). A lean 1.72 metres (5 ft 7+3â4 in) tall, DalÃ already drew attention as an eccentric and dandy. He had long hair and sideburns, coat, stockings, and knee-breeches in the style of English aesthetes of the late 19th century.
At the Residencia, he became close friends with Pepin Bello, Luis Bunuel, Federico Garcia Lorca, and others associated with the Madrid avant-garde group Ultra. The friendship with Lorca had a strong element of mutual passion, but DalÃ said he rejected the poet's sexual advances. DalÃ's friendship with Lorca was to remain one of his most emotionally intense relationships until the poet's death at the hands of Nationalist forces in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
Also in 1922, he began what would become a lifelong relationship with the Prado Museum, which he felt was, 'incontestably the best museum of old paintings in the world.' Each Sunday morning, DalÃ went to the Prado to study the works of the great masters. 'This was the start of a monk-like period for me, devoted entirely to solitary work: visits to the Prado, where, pencil in hand, I analyzed all of the great masterpieces, studio work, models, research.'
Those paintings by DalÃ in which he experimented with Cubism earned him the most attention from his fellow students since there were no Cubist artists in Madrid at the time. Cabaret Scene (1922) is a typical example of such work. Through his association with members of the Ultra group, DalÃ became more acquainted with avant-garde movements, including Dada and Futurism. One of his earliest works to show a strong Futurist and Cubist influence was the watercolor Night-Walking Dreams (1922). At this time, DalÃ also read Freud and LautrÃéamont who were to have a profound influence on his work.

In May 1925 DalÃ exhibited eleven works in a group exhibition held by the newly formed Sociedad IbÃérica de Artistas in Madrid. Seven of the works were in his Cubist mode and four in a more realist style. Several leading critics praised his work. DalÃ held his first solo exhibition at Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona, from 14 to 27 November 1925. This exhibition, before his exposure to Surrealism, included twenty-two works and was a critical and commercial success.

In April 1926 DalÃ made his first trip to Paris where he met Pablo Picasso, whom he revered. Picasso had already heard favorable reports about DalÃ from Joan MirÃ³, a fellow Catalan who later introduced him to many Surrealist friends. As he developed his own style over the next few years, DalÃ made some works strongly influenced by Picasso and MirÃ³. DalÃ was also influenced by the work of Yves Tanguy, and he later allegedly told Tanguy's niece, "I pinched everything from your uncle Yves."

DalÃ left the Royal Academy in 1926, shortly before his final exams. His mastery of painting skills at that time was evidenced by his realistic The Basket of Bread, painted in 1926.

Later that year he exhibited again at Galeries Dalmau, from 31 December 1926 to 14 January 1927, with the support of the art critic SebastiÃ Gasch. The show included twenty-three paintings and seven drawings, with the "Cubist" works displayed in a separate section from the "objective" works. The critical response was generally positive with Composition with Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) singled out for particular attention.

1929 to World War II

In 1929, DalÃ collaborated with Surrealist film director Luis BuÃ±uel on the short film Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog). His main contribution was to help BuÃ±uel write the script for the film. DalÃ later claimed to have also played a significant role in the filming of the project, but this is not substantiated by contemporary accounts. In August 1929, DalÃ met his lifelong muse and future wife Gala, born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova. She was a Russian immigrant ten years his senior, who at that time was married to Surrealist poet Paul Ãluard.

In works such as The First Days of Spring, The Great Masturbatorand The Lugubrious Game DalÃ continued his exploration of the themes of sexual anxiety and unconscious desires. DalÃ's first Paris exhibition was at the recently opened Goemans Gallery in November 1929 and featured eleven works. In his preface to the catalog, AndrÃé Breton described DalÃ's new work as "the most hallucinatory that has been produced up to now". The exhibition was a commercial success but the critical response was divided. In the same year, DalÃ officially joined the Surrealist group in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris. The Surrealists hailed what DalÃ was later to call his paranoiac-critical method of accessing the subconscious for greater artistic creativity.

Meanwhile, DalÃ's relationship with his father was close to rupture. Don Salvador DalÃ y Cusi strongly disapproved of his son's romance with Gala and saw his connection to the Surrealists as a bad influence on his morals. The final straw was when Don Salvador read in a Barcelona newspaper that his son had recently exhibited in Paris a drawing of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, with a provocative inscription: "Sometimes, I spit for fun on my mother's portrait". Outraged, Don Salvador demanded that his son recant publicly. DalÃ refused, perhaps out of fear of expulsion from the Surrealist group, and was violently thrown out of his paternal home on 28 December 1929. His father told him that he would be disinherited and that he should never set foot in CadaquÃés again. The following summer, DalÃ and Gala rented a small fisherman's cabin in a nearby bay at Port Lligat. He soon bought the cabin, and over the years enlarged it by buying neighboring ones, gradually building his beloved villa by the sea. DalÃ's father would eventually relent and come to accept his son's companion.

In 1931, DalÃ painted one of his most famous works, The Persistence of Memory, which developed a surrealistic image of soft, melting pocket watches. The general interpretation of the work is that the soft watches are a rejection of the assumption that time is rigid or deterministic. This idea is supported by other images in the work, such as the wide expanding landscape, and other limp watches shown being devoured by ants.

DalÃ had two important exhibitions at the Pierre Colle Gallery in Paris in June 1931 and May-June 1932. The earlier exhibition included sixteen paintings of which The Persistence of Memory attracted the most attention. Some of the notable features of the exhibitions were the proliferation of images and references to DalÃ's muse Gala and the inclusion of Surrealist Objects such as Hypnagogic Clock and Clock Based on the Decomposition of Bodies. DalÃ's last, and largest, the exhibition at the Pierre Colle Gallery was held in June 1933 and included twenty-two paintings, ten drawings, and two objects. One critic noted DalÃ's precise draftsmanship and attention to detail, describing him as a "paranoiac of geometrical temperament". DalÃ's first New York exhibition was held at Julien Levy's gallery in November-December 1933. The exhibition featured twenty-six works and was a commercial and critical success. The New Yorker critic praised the precision and lack of sentimentality in the works, calling them "frozen nightmares".

DalÃ and Gala, having lived together since 1929, were civilly married on 30 January 1934 in Paris. They later remarried in a Church ceremony on 8 August 1958 at Sant MartÃ Vell.^[67] In addition to inspiring many artworks throughout her life, Gala would act as DalÃ's business manager, supporting their extravagant lifestyle while adeptly steering clear of insolvency. Gala, who herself engaged in extra-marital affairs, seemed to tolerate DalÃ's dalliances with younger muses, secure in her own position as his primary relationship. DalÃ continued to paint her as they both aged, producing sympathetic and adoring images of her. The "tense, complex and ambiguous relationship" lasting over 50 years would later become the subject of an opera, Jo, DalÃ (I, DalÃ) by Catalan composer Xavier Benguerel.

DalÃ's first visit to the United States in November 1934 attracted widespread press coverage. His second New York exhibition was held at the Julien Levy Gallery in November-December 1934 and was again a commercial and critical success. DalÃ delivered three lectures on Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and other venues during which he told his audience for the first time that "[t]he only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.

" The heiress Caresse Crosby, the inventor of the brassiere, organized a farewell fancy dress ball for DalÃ on 18 January 1935. DalÃ wore a glass case on his chest containing a brassiere and Gala dressed as a woman giving birth through her head. A Paris newspaper later claimed that the DalÃs had dressed as the Lindbergh baby and his kidnapper, a claim which DalÃ denied.

While the majority of the Surrealist group had become increasingly associated with leftist politics, DalÃ maintained an ambiguous position on the subject of the proper relationship between politics and art. Leading Surrealist AndrÃé Breton accused DalÃ of defending the "new" and "irrational" in "the Hitler phenomenon", but DalÃ quickly rejected this claim, saying, "I am Hitlerian neither in fact nor intention". DalÃ insisted that Surrealism could exist in an apolitical context and refused to explicitly denounce fascism. Later in 1934, DalÃ was subjected to a "trial", in which he narrowly avoided being expelled from the Surrealist group.^[74] To this, DalÃ retorted, "The difference between the Surrealists and me is that I am a Surrealist."

In 1936, DalÃ took part in the London International Surrealist Exhibition. His lecture, titled FantÃ´mes paranoiacs authentiques, was delivered while wearing a deep-sea diving suit and helmet. He had arrived carrying a billiard cue and leading a pair of Russian wolfhounds and had to have the helmet unscrewed as he gasped for breath. He commented that "I just wanted to show that I was 'plunging deeply into the human mind."

DalÃ's first solo London exhibition was held at the Alex, Reid, and Lefevre Gallery the same year. The show included twenty-nine paintings and eighteen drawings. The critical response was generally favorable, although the Daily Telegraph critic wrote: "These pictures from the subconscious reveal so skilled a craftsman that the artist's return to full consciousness may be awaited with interest."

In December 1936 DalÃ participated in the Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism exhibition at MoMA and a solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. Both exhibitions attracted large attendances and widespread press coverage.

The painting Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936) attracted particular attention. DalÃ later described it as, "a vast human body breaking out into monstrous excrescences of arms and legs tearing at one another in a delirium of auto-strangulation". On 14 December, DalÃ, aged 32, was featured on the cover of Time magazine.

From 1933 DalÃ was supported by Zodiac, a group of affluent admirers who each contributed to a monthly stipend for the painter in exchange for a painting of their choice. From 1936 DalÃ's main patron in London was the wealthy Edward James who would support him financially for two years. One of DalÃ's most important paintings from the period of James' patronage was The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937). They also collaborated on two of the most enduring icons of the Surrealist movement: the Lobster Telephone and the Mae West Lips Sofa.

DalÃ was in London when the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936. When he later learned that his friend Lorca had been executed by Nationalist forces, DalÃ's claimed response was to shout: "OlÃé!" DalÃ was to include frequent references to the poet in his art and writings for the remainder of his life. Nevertheless, DalÃ avoided taking a public stand for or against the Republic for the duration of the conflict.

In January 1938, DalÃ unveiled Rainy Taxi, a three-dimensional artwork consisting of an automobile and two mannequin occupants being soaked with rain from within the taxi. The piece was first displayed at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris at the Exposition Internationale du SurrÃéalisme, organized by AndrÃé Breton and Paul Ãluard. The Exposition was designed by artist Marcel Duchamp, who also served as host.

In March that year, DalÃ met Sigmund Freud thanks to Stefan Zweig. As DalÃ sketched Freud's portrait, Freud whispered, "That boy looks like a fanatic." DalÃ was delighted upon hearing later about this comment from his hero.[5] The following day Freud wrote to Zweig "...until now I have been inclined to regard the Surrealists, who have apparently adopted me as their patron saint, as complete fools.....That young Spaniard, with his candid fanatical eyes and his undeniable technical mastery, has changed my estimate. It would indeed be very interesting to investigate analytically how he came to create that picture [i.e. Metamorphosis of Narcissus]."

In September 1938, Salvador DalÃ was invited by Gabrielle Coco Chanel to her house "La Pausa" in Roquebrune on the French Riviera. There he painted numerous paintings he later exhibited at Julien Levy Gallery in New York. This exhibition in March-April 1939 included twenty-one paintings and eleven drawings. Lifereported that no exhibition in New York had been so popular since Whistler's Mother was shown in 1934.

At the 1939 New York World's Fair, DalÃ debuted his Dream of Venus Surrealist pavilion, located in the Amusements Area of the exposition. It featured bizarre sculptures, statues, mermaids, and live nude models in

"costumes" made of fresh seafood, an event photographed by Horst P. Horst, George Platt Lynes, and Murray Korman. DalÃ was angered by changes to his designs, railing against mediocrities who thought that "a woman with the tail of a fish is possible; a woman with the head of a fish impossible."

Soon after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War in April 1939, DalÃ wrote to Luis BuÃ±uel denouncing socialism and Marxism and praising Catholicism and the Falange. As a result, BuÃ±uel broke off relations with DalÃ.

In the May issue of the Surrealist magazine Minotaure, AndrÃé Breton announced DalÃ's expulsion from the Surrealist group, claiming that DalÃ had espoused race war and that the over-refinement of his paranoiac-critical method was a repudiation of Surrealist automatism. This led many Surrealists to break off relations with DalÃ. In 1949 Breton coined the derogatory nickname "Avida Dollars" (avid for dollars), an anagram for "Salvador DalÃ". This was a derisive reference to the increasing commercialization of DalÃ's work, and the perception that DalÃ sought self-aggrandizement through fame and fortune.

World War II

The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 saw the DalÃs in France. Following the German invasion, they were able to escape because on 20 June 1940 they were issued visas by Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, France. They crossed into Portugal and subsequently sailed on the Excambionfrom Lisbon to New York in August 1940.^[97] DalÃ and Gala were to live in the United States for eight years, splitting their time between New York and the Monterey Peninsula, California.

DalÃ spent the winter of 1940-41 at Hampton Manor, the residence of Caresse Crosby, in Caroline County, Virginia, where he worked on various projects including his autobiography and paintings for his upcoming exhibition.

DalÃ announced the death of the Surrealist movement and the return of classicism in his exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in April-May 1941. The exhibition included nineteen paintings (among them Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire and The Face of War) and other works. In his catalog essay and media comments, DalÃ proclaimed a return to form, control, structure and the Golden Section. Sales however were disappointing and the majority of critics did not believe there had been a major change in DalÃ's work.

On 2 September 1941, he hosted A Surrealistic Night in an Enchanted Forest in Monterey, a charity event which attracted national attention but raised little money for charity.

The Museum of Modern Art held two major, simultaneous retrospectives of Dali and Joan MirÃ³ from November 1941 to February 1942, DalÃ being represented by forty-two paintings and sixteen drawings. DalÃ's work attracted significant attention of critics and the exhibition later toured eight American cities, enhancing his reputation in America.

In October 1942, DalÃ's autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador DalÃ was published simultaneously in New York and London and was reviewed widely by the press. Time magazine's reviewer called it "one of the most irresistible books of the year". George Orwell later wrote a scathing review in the Saturday Book. A passage in the autobiography in which DalÃ claimed that BuÃ±uel was solely responsible for the anti-clericalism in the film L'Age d'Or may have indirectly led to BuÃ±uel resigning his position at MoMA in 1943 under pressure from the State Department. DalÃ also published a novel Hidden Faces in 1944 with less critical and commercial success.

In the catalog essay for his exhibition at the Knoedler Gallery in New York in 1943 DalÃ continued his attack on the Surrealist movement, writing: "Surrealism will at least have served to give experimental proof that total sterility and attempts at automatizations have gone too far and have led to a totalitarian system. ... Today's laziness and the total lack of technique have reached their paroxysm in the psychological signification of the current use of the college [collage]". The critical response to the society portraits in the exhibition, however, was generally negative.

In November-December 1945 DalÃ exhibited new work at the Bignou Gallery in New York. The exhibition included eleven oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and illustrations. Works included Basket of Bread, Atomic and Uranian Melancholic Ideal, and My Wife Nude Contemplating her own Body Transformed into Steps, the Three Vertebrae of a Column, Sky and Architecture. The exhibition was notable for works in DalÃ's new classicism style and those heralding his "atomic period".

During the war years, DalÃ was also engaged in projects in various other fields. He executed designs for a number of ballets including Labyrinth (1942), Sentimental Colloquy, Mad Tristan, and The Cafe of Chinitas (all 1944). In 1945 he created the dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's film Spellbound. He also produced artwork and designs for products such as perfumes, cosmetics, hosiery and ties.

Postwar in United States (1946-48)

In 1946, DalÃ worked with Walt Disney and animator John Hench on an unfinished animated film Destino.

DalÃ exhibited new work at the Bignou Gallery from November 1947 to January 1948. The 14 oil paintings and other works in the exhibition reflected DalÃ's increasing interest in atomic physics. Notable works included Dematerialization Near the Nose of Nero (The Separation of the Atom), Intra-Atomic Equilibrium of a Swan's Feather, and a study for Leda Atomica. The proportions of the latter work were worked out in collaboration with a mathematician.

In early 1948, DalÃ's 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship was published. The book was a mixture of anecdotes, practical advice on painting, and DalÃnian polemics.

Later years in Spain

In 1948, DalÃ and Gala moved back into their house in Port Lligat, on the coast near CadaquÃés. For the next three decades, they would spend most of their time there, spending winters in Paris and New York. DalÃ's decision to live in Spain under Franco and his public support for the regime prompted outrage from many anti-Francoist artists and intellectuals. Pablo Picasso refused to mention DalÃ's name or acknowledge his existence for the rest of his life.

In 1960, AndrÃé Breton unsuccessfully fought against the inclusion of DalÃ's Sistine Madonna in the Surrealist Intrusion in the Enchanter's Domain exhibition organized by Marcel Duchamp in New York. Breton and other Surrealists issued a tract to coincide with the exhibition denouncing DalÃ as "the ex-apologist of Hitler... and friend of Franco".
In December 1949 DalÃ's sister Anna Maria published her book Salvador DalÃ Seen by his Sister. DalÃ was angered by passages that he considered derogatory towards his wife Gala and broke off relations with his family. When DalÃ's father died in September 1950 DalÃ learned that he had been virtually disinherited in his will. A two-year legal dispute followed over paintings and drawings DalÃ had left in his family home, during which DalÃ was accused of assaulting a public notary.

As DalÃ moved further towards embracing Catholicism he introduced more religious iconography and themes in his painting. In 1949 he painted a study for The Madonna of Port Lligat (first version, 1949) and showed it to Pope Pius XIIduring an audience arranged to discuss DalÃ 's marriage to Gala. This work was a precursor to the phase DalÃ dubbed "Nuclear Mysticism," a fusion of Einsteinian physics, classicism, and Catholic mysticism. In paintings such as The Madonna of Port Lligat, The Christ of Saint John on the Cross and The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, DalÃ sought to synthesize Christian iconography with images of material disintegration inspired by nuclear physics. His later Nuclear Mysticism works included La Gare de Perpignan (1965) and The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1968-70).

DalÃ's keen interest in natural science and mathematics was further manifested by the proliferation of images of DNA and rhinoceros horn shapes in works from the mid-1950s. According to DalÃ, the rhinoceros horn signifies divine geometry because it grows in a logarithmic spiral. DalÃ was also fascinated by the Tesseract (a four-dimensional cube), using it, for example, in Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus).

DalÃ had been extensively using optical illusions such as double images, anamorphosis, negative space, visual puns and trompe-l'Åil since his Surrealist period and this continued in his later work. At some point, DalÃ had a glass floor installed in a room near his studio in Port Lligat. He made extensive use of it to study foreshortening, both from above and from below, incorporating dramatic perspectives of figures and objects into his paintings.^â

He also experimented with the bulletist technique pointillism, enlarged half-tone dot grids and stereoscopic images.[129] He was among the first artists to employ holography in an artistic manner. In DalÃ's later years, young artists such as Andy Warhol proclaimed him an important influence on pop art.

In 1960, DalÃ began work on his Theatre-Museum in his home town of Figueres. It was his largest single project and a main focus of his energy through to 1974, when it opened. He continued to make additions through the mid-1980s.

In 1955, DalÃ met Nanita Kalaschnikoff, who was to become a close friend, muse, and model. At a French nightclub in 1965 DalÃ met Amanda Lear, a fashion model then known as Peki Oslo. Lear became his protÃégÃée and one of his muses. According to Lear, she and DalÃ were united in a "spiritual marriage" on a deserted mountaintop.

Final years and death

In 1968, DalÃ bought a castle in Púbol for Gala, and from 1971 she would retreat there for weeks at a time, DalÃ having agreed not to visit without her written permission.^[60] His fears of abandonment and estrangement from his longtime artistic muse contributed to depression and failing health.^[5]

In 1980, at age 76, DalÃ's health deteriorated sharply and he was treated for depression, drug addiction, and Parkinson-like symptoms, including a severe tremor in his right arm. There were also allegations that Gala had been supplying DalÃ with pharmaceuticals from her own prescriptions.^[138]

Gala died on 10 June 1982, at the age of 87. After her death, DalÃ moved from Figueres to the castle in Púbol, where she was entombed.^[5]^[6

In 1982, King Juan Carlos bestowed on DalÃ the title of MarquÃés de DalÃ de Púbol^[140]^[141] (Marquess of DalÃ of Púbol) in the nobility of Spain, Púbolbeing where DalÃ then lived. The title was initially hereditary, but at DalÃ's request was changed to life-only in 1983.^[140]

In May 1983, what was said to be DalÃ's last painting, The Swallow's Tail, was revealed. The work was heavily influenced by the mathematical catastrophe theory of RenÃé Thom. However, some critics have questioned how DalÃ could have executed a painting with such precision given the severe tremor in his painting arm.^[142]

From early 1984 DalÃ's depression worsened and he refused food, leading to severe undernourishment.^[143] DalÃ had previously stated his intention to put himself into a state of suspended animation as he had read that some microorganisms could do.^[144]In August 1984 a fire broke out in DalÃ's bedroom and he was hospitalized with severe burns. Two judicial inquiries found that the fire was caused by an electrical fault and no findings of negligence were made.^[145] After his release from hospital DalÃ moved to the Torre Galatea, an annex to the DalÃ Theatre-Museum.^[146]

There have been allegations that DalÃ was forced by his guardians to sign blank canvases that could later be used in forgeries.^[147] It is also alleged that he knowingly sold otherwise-blank lithograph paper which he had signed, possibly producing over 50,000 such sheets from 1965 until his death.^[5] As a result, art dealers tend to be wary of late graphic works attributed to DalÃ.^[148]

In July 1986, DalÃ had a pacemaker implanted. On his return to his Theatre-Museum he made a brief public appearance, saying:

When you are a genius, you do not have the right to die, because we are necessary for the progress of humanity.^[149]^[150]

In November 1988, DalÃ entered hospital with heart failure. On 5 December 1988, he was visited by King Juan Carlos, who confessed that he had always been a serious devotee of DalÃ.^[151]DalÃ gave the king a drawing, Head of Europa, which would turn out to be DalÃ's final drawing.

On the morning of 23 January 1989, DalÃ died of cardiac arrest at the age of 84.^[152] He is buried in the crypt below the stage of his Theatre-Museum in Figueres. The location is across the street from the church of Sant Pere, where he had his baptism, first communion, and funeral, and is only 450 metres (1,480 ft) from the house where he was born.^[

Exhumation

On 26 June 2017 it was announced that a judge in Madrid had ordered the exhumation of DalÃ's body in order to obtain samples for a paternity suit.^[154] Joan Manuel Sevillano, manager of the FundaciÃ³n Gala Salvador DalÃ (The Gala-Salvador DalÃ Foundation), denounced the exhumation as inappropriate.^[155] The exhumation took place on the evening of 20 July, and his DNA was extracted.^[156] On 6 September 2017 the Foundation stated that the tests carried out proved conclusively that DalÃ and the claimant were not related. On 18 May 2020 a Spanish court dismissed an appeal from the claimant and ordered her to pay the costs of the exhumation.

Politics and personality

As a youth, DalÃ identified as communist, anti-monarchist and anti-clerical, and in 1924 he was briefly imprisoned by the Primo de Rivera dictatorship as a person "intensely liable to cause public disorder". When DalÃ officially joined the Surrealist group in 1929 his political activism initially intensified. In 1931, he became involved in the Workers' and Peasants' Front, delivering lectures at meetings and contributing to their party journal.

However, as political divisions within the Surrealist group grew, DalÃ soon developed a more apolitical stance, refusing to publicly denounce fascism. In 1934, AndrÃé Breton accused him of being sympathetic to Hitler and DalÃ narrowly avoided being expelled from the group. In 1935 DalÃ wrote a letter to Breton suggesting that non-white races should be enslaved. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, DalÃ avoided taking a public stand for or against the Republic. However, immediately after Franco's victory in 1939, DalÃ praised Catholicism and the Falange and was expelled from the Surrealist group.

After DalÃ's return to his native Catalonia in 1948, he publicly supported Franco's regime and announced his return to the Catholic faith. DalÃ was granted an audience with Pope Pius XII in 1949 and with Pope John XXIII in 1959. He had official meetings with General Franco in June 1956, October 1968, and May 1974. In 1968, DalÃ stated that on Franco's death there should be no return to democracy and Spain should become an absolute monarchy. In September 1975, DalÃ publicly supported Franco's decision to execute three alleged Basque terrorists and repeated his support for an absolute monarchy, adding: "Personally, I'm against freedom; I'm for the Holy Inquisition." In the following days, he fled to New York after his home in Port Lligat was stoned and he had received numerous death threats. When King Juan Carlos visited the ailing DalÃ in August 1981, DalÃ told him: "I have always been an anarchist and a monarchist."

DalÃ espoused a mystical view of Catholicism and in his later years he claimed to be a Catholic and an agnostic. He was interested in the writings of the Jesuit priest and philosopher Teilhard de Chardin and his Omega Point theory. DalÃ's painting Tuna Fishing (Homage to Meissonier) (1967) was inspired by his reading of Chardin.

Sexuality

DalÃ's sexuality had a profound influence on his work. He stated that as a child he saw a book with graphic illustrations of venereal diseases and this provoked a life-long disgust of female genitalia and a fear of impotence and sexual intimacy. DalÃ frequently stated that his main sexual activity involved voyeurism and masturbation and his preferred sexual orifice was the anus. DalÃ said that his wife Gala was the only person with whom he had achieved complete coitus. From 1927, DalÃ's work featured graphic and symbolic sexual images usually associated with other images evoking shame and disgust. Anal and fecal imagery is prominent in his work from this time. Some of the most notable works reflecting these themes include The First Days of Spring (1929), The Great Masturbator (1929), and The Lugubrious Game (1929). Several of DalÃ's intimates in the 1960s and 1970s have stated that he would arrange for selected guests to perform choreographed sexual activities to aid his voyeurism and masturbation.

Personality

DalÃ was renowned for his eccentric and ostentatious behavior throughout his career. In 1941, the Director of Exhibitions and Publications at MoMA wrote: "The fame of Salvador DalÃ has been an issue of particular controversy for more than a decade...DalÃ's conduct may have been undignified, but the greater part of his art is a matter of dead earnest." When DalÃ was elected to the French Academy of Fine Arts in 1979, one of his fellow academicians stated that he hoped DalÃ would now abandon his "clowneries".

In 1936, at the premiere screening of Joseph Cornell's film Rose Hobart at Julien Levy's gallery in New York City, DalÃ knocked over the projector in a rage. "My idea for a film is exactly that," he said shortly afterward, "I never wrote it down or told anyone, but it is as if he had stolen it!" In 1939, while working on a window display for Bonwit Teller, he became so enraged by unauthorized changes to his work that he pushed a display bathtub through a plate glass window. In 1955, he delivered a lecture at the Sorbonne, arriving in a Rolls-Royce full of cauliflowers.

To promote Robert Descharnes' 1962 book The World of Salvador DalÃ, he appeared in a Manhattan bookstore on a bed, wired up to a machine that traced his brain waves and blood pressure. He would autograph books while thus monitored, and the book buyer would also be given the paper chart recording.

After World War II, DalÃ became one of the most recognized artists in the world, and his long cape, walking stick, haughty expression, and upturned waxed mustache became icons of his brand. His boastfulness and public declarations of his genius became essential elements of the public DalÃ persona: "every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador DalÃ".

DalÃ frequently traveled with his pet ocelot Babou, even bringing it aboard the luxury ocean liner SS France.

DalÃ's fame meant he was a frequent guest on television in Spain, France and the United States, including appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on 7 January 1963, The Mike Wallace Interview and the panel show What's My Line?. DalÃ appeared on The Dick Cavett Show on 6 March 1970 carrying an anteater. He also appeared in numerous advertising campaigns such as Lanvin [fr] chocolates and Braniff International Airlines in 1968.

Legacy

Two major museums are devoted to DalÃ's work: the DalÃ Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, and the Salvador DalÃ Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.

DalÃ's life and work have been an important influence on pop art, other Surrealists, and contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. He has also had a continuing influence on contemporary culture. He has been portrayed on film by Robert Pattinson in Little Ashes (2008), by Adrien Brody in Midnight in Paris (2011), and by Ben Kingsley in Daliland. The Spanish television series Money Heist (2017-2021) includes characters wearing a costume of red jumpsuits and DalÃ masks.The creator of the series stated that the DalÃ mask was chosen because it was an iconic Spanish image. The Salvador DalÃ Desert in Bolivia and the DalÃ crater on the planet Mercury are named for him. The container ship MV Dali, was also named after him in 2015.

The Gala-Salvador DalÃ Foundation currently serves as his official estate. The US copyright representative for the Gala-Salvador DalÃ Foundation is the Artists Rights Society.