Salvador Dali
Salvador Dali (1904-89), Spanish painter. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid but was expelled because of his bizarre behaviour. After studying the’ works of Sigmund Freud, he went to Paris and joined the Surrealists, a group of artists whose aim was to ex-press the subconscious mind in their paintings. His interest in photographic realism is expressed both in his paintings and in his work with the director Louis ButWal in the films Un Chien Andalou (1928) and L’Age d’or (1930). Such nightmarish paintings as The Persistence of Memory (1931) and Premonition of Civil War (1936) reveal his preoccupation with dream symbolism. In 1938, after rejoining the Catholic Church, he began to paint religious subjects. These paintings were denounced by the Surrealists and in 1940 Dali went to live in the US. He returned to Spain in 1955. His last years were spent as a bedridden recluse.
“There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad. Salvador Dali, the American July 1956”
