Salvador Dalí

Who is Salvador Dalí?

Salvador Dalí was a Spanish surrealist painter renowned for his technical virtuosity, striking dreamlike imagery and flamboyant public persona. Born in Figueres, Catalonia, he studied at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid, where he befriended Federico García Lorca and Luis Buñuel. He became a leading figure of the Surrealist movement, drawing on Freudian ideas of dreams and the subconscious. His most famous painting, 'The Persistence of Memory' (1931), with its melting watches, is one of the most recognizable images of 20th-century art. Dalí collaborated with Buñuel on the pioneering Surrealist film 'Un Chien Andalou' (1929) and worked across painting, sculpture, film, jewellery and design. In later decades he developed what he called 'nuclear mysticism', blending science, religion and classical technique in works such as 'Christ of Saint John of the Cross'. He founded the Dalí Theatre-Museum in his native Figueres, where he is buried, and died there in 1989.

Sources: Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory (1931), Museum of Modern Art, New York · Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel, Un Chien Andalou (1929)