Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí Domenech was born on the 11th May 1904 in Figueras, Gerona. His father, Salvador Dalí i Cusí was a prestigious notary, married to Felipa Doménech. They had an earlier son, also called Salvador, who died from meningitis. This incident marked his parents, and made them see in him a twin to their lost son. And, as well as giving him the same name, they showered him with excessive attention and care, which gave Dalí a difficult and capricious personality.

"His father and sister's portrait"

His liking for painting began around 1914 when he saw the impressionist paintings of a friend of his father´s, Ramón Pichot, and painted a self-portrait entitled "Ill Child". He didn´t stop painting from this moment, and took interest in the artistic movements of the time: impressionism, pointillism, cubism ... he had a passion for Juan Grís, but apart from painting, and assisting with classes, he read all that he could, fundametally philosophy: Spinoza, Descartes, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Kant. And so he acquired the knowledge and experiences which led him to formulate his philosophical methodology. And at that time, his original appearance created expectations.

At the age of 18, he met García Lorca and Luis Buñuel, with whom he made great friends. During this time, he painted several portraits, landscapes and still lifes, and showed in joint exhibitions with unquestionable success. His unique personality began to show itself and cause his first problems while at the San Fernando School of Fine Art. He was expelled from there, amongst other reasons, for protesting against the appointment of a teacher.

In 1924, he went on holiday to Cadaques with Federico García Lorca, where their friendship grew. The following year, after being re-accepted to the school in San Fernando, he showed his first individual exhibition in the Dalmau Galleries, with 22 works of canvases and drawings. However, his stay at the school didn´t last long, and despite getting excellent marks, he was reprimanded and finally expelled for his conduct, appearance and eccentric behaviour, after the board declared him incompetent.

A new phase began with the second exhibition in the Dalmau Galleries in 1927, with 20 canvases and seven drawings. In the same year, he met Pablo Picasso, who later was to describe him as "the last remaining Renaissance painter in the world". He painted "The Harlequin" and designed the sets for his friend, Federico García Lorca´s work, "Mariana Pineda". But perhaps the most important landmark of this time in his life was the creation of his first surrealist painting, "Honey is Sweeter than Blood", which García Lorca entitled"The Wood of Apparatus". He colaborated with Luis Buñuel in two films, "Un Chien Andalou" and "The Golden Age". Later he described himself as "I am surrealism".

"The big masturbator"

His private life also changed after knowing Gala - Helena Deluviana Diakonoff - his future wife and muse. Gala was essential in the artist´s later life and she appears in more than 50 works.

Before the Spanish Civil War, he showed successfully in London. Moreover, he was expelled from the surrealist movement by André Breton because of his political themes, which tempted him to see the United States of America as a new and promising market. He made his first trip to New York and successfully published a few illustrations dedicated to this city.

He mixed political personalities, without caring about their ideology. He neither critisized not approved. He showed Hitler and Lenin. In August 1936, Lorca was murdered, which led Dalí into a deep depression, and after which he painted the "Venus de Milo con cajones". He returned to the USA, where he undertook numerous diverse works, scandals included.

In the midst of the Civil War, he met Freud in London, whom he had read and admired. He continued to be influenced from all over the world, he travelled to Italy, where he studied Palladio and the Renaissance and Baroque painters.

In 1939, he returned to the United States, where expectations were growing, both of his creations and his eccentricities. He designed the sets and changing room for the Montecarlo Ballet during their tour of America. He decided to change his pictorial style, leaving surrealism behind and returning to "classic". At the start of the Second World War, he returned to Spain, and shortly afterwards left again for the United States, where he lived until 1948. He painted works like "The Resurrection of Meat" and "Self Portrait with Fried Bacon". He realized exhibitions - The New York Museum of Modern Art, created sets for ballets - Chinitas Cafe, illustrated books - Macbeth, Mémoires Fantastiques, Don Quijote and wrote his autobiography: "The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí".

"Chist of Saint John of the Cross"

In the 50´s, by now in Portlligat, his classicism became religious. He studied and painted the great themes of Christianity: "The Madonna of Portlligat", the famous "Cristo de san Juan de la Cruz", "Corpus Hypercubicus" "Santiago el Mayor" y "The Last Supper". Furthermore, he continued carrying out profane works, "Leda atómica", "Christopher Columbus´s Dream, "Raphaelite Head Exploding", "Cabeza rafaélica explotando", "Joven virgen autosodomizada por su propia castidad" and "Galatea en las esferas".

This continued into the 60´s - an elaborate academicism criticized by many as being empty and commercial. In 1964, the Spanish government bestowed him with the Great Cross of Isabella the Catholic, because, despite his revolutionary, eccentric and blasphemous life, he converted to a fervent Catholic as well as an admirer of Franco. He was the perfect great artist to pit against Picasso, and the Spanish government knew it.

In 1979, an anthological exhibition was opened in the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and Dalí was admitted to the French Academy of Fine Arts.

His personal search for "hyperstereocopic" techniques led him to a creative confusion which ended with his last work, "The Swallow´s Tail", in 1983.

His health deteriorated after the fire at Pubol Castle, where he lived. He moved to the Galatea Tower where he died on 23rd January 1989. He is buried in the crypt-mausoleum of the Museum Theatre in Figueras.