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***March 2003 *** |
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Salvador Dali May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989 |
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Salvador Dali was born in Figueras, Spain. He started painting at a young age and had completed two large canvases done in the traditional style by the time he was ten. |
He studied at the art academy when he finished school but was expelled by the time he was twenty. When told by an instructor to paint a copy of a Gothic Madonna, he painted a pair of scales, declaring, “You see the Virgin, but I see a pair of scales.” |
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In 1924 he was briefly jailed for anti-government activity and
by the time he was thirty, had created enough scandals and legends
to last a lifetime. |
In 1941 the Museum of Modern Art offered him a major exhibition
and while in New York he crashed through a 5th Avenue window to
rearrange a display of his that had been changed. |
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Dali was an intense man with penetrating eyes and an exaggerated
waxed moustache. His surrealist images , poetry, sculpture, jewelry,
furniture, ballet sets and movie scripts challenged not only himself
as an artist but society as a whole. Dali stated that he had a
special sensitivity that enabled him to see in all objects the
meanings that were hidden from normal human beings. “The
only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad”
he said.
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