Salvador Dali was a marquis , although no one remembers him today. Because the greatness of the art that he left of him has far exceeded the centuries-old family prestige.

An elastic, eclectic, unpredictable artist … he passed from painting to sculpture, from writing to photography, to architecture with an enviable naturalness.

The marquis-draftsman

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali i Domenech, 1st Marquis of Dali de Pubol was born on 11 May 1904 in Figueres, and died here on 23 January 1989. This is a very small town in Catalonia (not far from the French border) in which Dali spends his childhood.

The death of his older brother, also named Salvador, occurs a year before his birth. He was born into a wealthy family, whose father is a lawyer and notary, and his mother Felipa, who encourages him from an early age in his artistic vocation.

While still a child, his parents made him believe he was the “reincarnation” of the little brother who died before his birth and this thing will forever mark the artist’s psyche, so much so that he himself went to pray to him for hours in the cemetery, even at night.

Dali’s mother dies when Salavador Dali is only 16 years old.

A tragic event that the artist will not give peace to. As stated by himself:

“It was the biggest misfortune that ever happened to me in my life. I loved her… I couldn’t resign myself to the loss of a person I counted on to make the inevitable imperfections of my soul invisible. ”

Dali already attracts interest in himself from a young age, with his manners and his dandy dress. In fact, he wears long hair and sideburns, dresses in jackets, long stockings and breeches like the British aesthetes of the late nineteenth century.

In his paintings he shows that he approaches Cubism, but later joins the Dadaist movement. He meets and becomes friends with Gabriel Garcia Lorca, who makes him erotic advances that the artist refuses. In the meantime he also becomes friends with Pepin Bello and Luis Bunuel.

Twenty years old – expelled from the Academy of Art before the final exams in protest. In fact, he says that the Academy is not able to evaluate his work, because he is not competent. This is how he goes to live with some friends in Madrid.

The “marquis-draftsman” amazes everyone with his skill , but also engages in fields other than painting. He wrote, develops beautiful photos, is also involved in cinema, sculpture and architecture. 

During his life he also met Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro , whom he admires very much, and for whom he is reciprocated.

Moving to Paris, he meets and marries his wife Gala. His career began in Paris which would make him famous throughout the world.

Salvador Dali works

In 1939, after the break with his father (who marries his aunt after his mother’s death) who does not approve of his life, the success of his works becomes international.

Each painting, each project is paid for in gold by collectors from all over the world. The works will be immortal pieces such as: The Sick Child, Swans Reflecting Elephants, The Persistence of Memory (with the famous “loose clocks” hanging from the branches), The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory .

They are always his work: the Sofa-Lips, the Telephone-Lobster, the Hat-Shoe and not everyone knows that the harmless yellow cloud bordered with red that is the logo of the Chupa Chups lollipops was designed by Dali.

He also creates a collection of 39 jewels , the most famous of which is the Royal Heart . It is a large brooch – or ex voto – in gold, diamonds, rubies and emeralds: the rubies are arranged in the center of the jewel, slowly hooked together so as to simulate the movement of the heart when the person wearing it moves. !

Dali’s film collaborations are also important . He also works with the great Walt Disney , on the animated film Destiny, which however does not see the light until 2003, completed posthumously.

Together with Luis Bunuel he wrote the plot of the film Un Chien Andalus and soon his own sets for the scenes of the “nightmares” of Hitchcock ‘s film Io Ti Salvero . He even creates an autobiographical documentary entitled ” Chaos and Creation”.

The largest collection of Dali’s work can be found at the Dali Theater Museum in Figueres , Catalonia, followed by the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida .

Other significant collections are those of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Salvador Dali Gallery in Pacific Palisades in California , the Espace Dali in Paris and the Dali Universe in London.

Dali Figueres Museum

The most important works of Salvador Dali

Here are some of the most important works created by Salvador Dali, in chronological order. We remind you that the works created by the artist are about 1,500, so it is impossible to list them all!

  • Landscape near Figueres (1910)
  • Vilabertran (1913)
  • Dutch interior (1914)
  • River landscape (1916)
  • Cadaques (1917)
  • Duck (1918)
  • Self-portrait in the study (1919)
  • Cadaques-The garden of the Llane (1919)
  • Self-portrait with Raphael’s neck (1920)
  • Portrait of the cellist Ricardo Pichot (1920)
  • Portrait of my father (1920-1921)
  • Self-portrait (circa 1921)
  • Madrid-Architecture and poplars (1922)
  • Jar (1922-1923)
  • Bathers of the Costa Brava (Bathers of Llane) (1923)
  • Cubist self-portrait (1923)
  • The Sick Child – Self-portrait in Cadaques (circa 1923)
  • Portrait of my sister and opposite Picasso figure (1923-1924)
  • Still Life (1924)
  • Anna Maria (1924)
  • Portrait of Luis Bunuel (1924)
  • Port Alghero (1924)
  • Girl at the Window (1925)
  • Portrait of my father (1925)
  • Venus and cupids (1925)
  • Lying Woman (1926)
  • Neo-Cubist Academy-Composition with three figures (1926)
  • Woman in front of the rocks (Penya-Segats) (1926)
  • Basket of bread (1926)
  • Apparatus and hand (1926-27)
  • Bather (1928)
  • The Great Masturbator (1929)
  • Imperial monument in the female child (1929)
  • Eerie Game (1929)
  • Rhubarb and Breast (1929)
  • Paranoid Horse Woman (1930)
  • The persistence of memory (1931)
  • Daytime hallucination-shadow of an approaching piano (1931)
  • Six Apparitions of Lenin on a Piano (1931)
  • Surrealist architecture (1932)
  • Middle bureaucrat atmosphericalcephalous milks a cranial harp (1933)
  • Retrospective female bust (1933)
  • My cousin Carolinetta on the beach in Rosas (1934)
  • Archaeological reminiscence of Millet’s Angelus (1935)
  • Giraffe on fire (1935)
  • Woman with a Head of Roses (1935)
  • Appearance of the city of Delft (1936)
  • Soft boiled bean construction: premonition of civil war (1936)
  • Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937)
  • Anatomies – Series of decals (1937)
  • Giraffe on fire (1937)
  • Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1936-1937)
  • Invisible afghan with apparition on the beach of Garcia Lorca’s face in the form of a fruit bowl with three figs (1938)
  • The endless riddle (1938)
  • Apparition of the face and fruit plate on the beach (1938)
  • Hitler’s riddle (1939)
  • Dancer – Death’s Head (1939)
  • Shirley Temple, cinema’s youngest sacred monster (1939)
  • Two pieces of bread express the sentiment of love (1940)
  • Allegory of the sunset air (1941)
  • Face of War (1941)
  • Allegory of an American Christmas (1943)
  • Geopolitical child observing the birth of a new man (1943)
  • Dance – The Seven Arts (1944)
  • Dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate just before awakening (1944)
  • Apotheosis of Homer (1945)
  • Portrait of Mrs. Isabel Styler-Tas (1945)
  • Composition-Portrait of Miss Eva Kolsman (1946)
  • The temptation of Saint Anthony (1946)
  • Battle around a dandelion (1947)
  • Portrait of Miss. Mary Sigall (1948)
  • La Turbie-Sir James Dunn seated (1949)
  • Atomic Leda (1949)
  • Our Lady of Port Lligat (1949)
  • Our Lady of Port Lligat (1950)
  • The Christ of the Cross (1951)
  • Dali naked in contemplation in front of five regular bodies metamorphosed into corpuscles, in which Leda di Leonardo suddenly appears chromosomatized in Gala’s face
  • Galatea with spheres (1952)
  • Soft watch at the time of the first explosion (1954)
  • Corpus Hypercubus (Crucifixion) (1954)
  • Virgin self-possessed by her chastity (1954)
  • The Last Supper (1955)
  • Blue Horns (1955)
  • Antiprotonic assumption (1956)
  • Assumption Canaveral (1956)
  • Heavenly Ride (1957)
  • Dionysus spits the full image of Cadaques on the tip of a three-tiered woman’s tongue (1958)
  • Metamorphosis of Hitler’s Face in a Moonlit Landscape (1958)
  • The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1958)
  • Undressing Woman (1959)
  • About Juan de Herrera’s ‘Speech on the Cubic Form’ (1960)
  • Arabi-Study for ‘The Battle of Tetuan’ (1961)
  • Arab (1962)
  • Arabian acidodeoxyribonucleics (1963)
  • Sistine Madonna (Ear of Pope John) (1963)
  • Landscape with flies (1964)
  • Crucifixion – Dedication for Gala by the divine Dali (1965)
  • Tables of the Our Father (1965)
  • Moses and the Pharaoh (1966)
  • The Tuna Fishing (1967)
  • Ascension (1968)
  • Illustrations for Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Mecenas Press, New York (1969)
  • Cape Creus with Nudes (1970)
  • Dali’s Horses (1971)
  • Self-portrait – Photomontage with the famous Mao-Marilyn created by Philippe Halsman (1972)
  • Dali from behind paints Gala from behind, eternalized by six virtual corneas temporarily reflected by six real mirrors (1973)
  • Hitler masturbates (1973)
  • Explosion of mystical faith in the middle of a cathedral (1960-74)
  • Gala looks at the Mediterranean sea which at twenty meters is transformed into a portrait of Abraham Lincoln – Homage to Rothko (two versions, 1975 and 1976)
  • Work for the ambulatory of the Dali museum (1977)
  • Allegory of Spring (1978)
  • In Search of the Fourth Dimension (1979)
  • Arabs (1980)
  • Amphitrite (1981)
  • Catastrophe Architecture and Calligraphy (1982)
  • Topological contortion of a female figure (1983)
  • The dovetail (1983);

Salvador Dali’s private life

I love and was always faithful to his wife Gala , who instead betrays him continuously and who dies after a long senile dementia in 1982.

In the seventies he had discovered and collaborated with a young English model, Amanda Lear . It was he who “invented” the legend of the woman’s bisexuality, creating the myth of her “passed as a man” and creating clothes for her that triggered doubts upon doubts. There is talk of a relationship between Dali and Lear, but the story has been repeatedly denied by both.

Dali manages to have  a son, Jose, with his wife Gala and adopts the daughter she had from a previous marriage, namely Cecile.

We want to conclude our post dedicated to the life of Salvador Dali with a quote from him, perhaps the most famous:

Every morning, just before getting up, I feel a great pleasure: that of being Salvador Dali!

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