Salvador Dali

Salvador Dalí i Domènech (1904-1989) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, graphic artist and designer. After passing through phases of Cubism, Futurism and Metaphysical painting, he joined the Surrealists in 1929. Throughout his life he cultivated eccentricity, claiming that this was the source of his creative energy. His paintings employed a meticulous academic technique that was contradicted by the unreal dream space he depicted and by the strangely hallucinatory characters of his imagery. In 1937 Dalí visited Italy and adopted a more traditional style; this together with his political views (he was a supporter of General Franco) led Breton to expel him from the Surrealist ranks. He moved to the USA in 1940 and remained there until 1955. During this time his paintings were often on religious themes, although sexual subjects and pictures centering on his wife Gala were also continuing preoccupations. In 1955 he returned to Spain and in old age became a recluse. There are museums devoted to Dalí's work in Figueras, his home town in Spain, and in St Petersburg in Florida.