10 interesting facts about Salvador Dali – an extraordinary Spanish surrealist artist

Always surrounded by controversy (and even after his death), Salvador Dali was not only a great artist and the most famous follower of surrealism in painting. The Spanish artist was an incredibly outstanding personality. He is undoubtedly one of the most recognizable artists in history.

Salvador Dali was born in the Catalan city of Figueres in 1904 and died on January 23, 1989. For 84 years of his life, he managed to become one of the most famous and intriguing personalities of the XNUMXth century. His extravagant personality attracted many, but Dali was more than his surreal paintings and curious moustache.

He left behind not only a huge creative legacy, but also a lot of rumors and conflicting legends. His life was bright, strange and incomprehensible, however, like his paintings, which surprise, delight, outrage and fascinate to this day.

Here are 10 of the most interesting facts about Salvador Dali that you may not have known.

10 He (inadvertently) turned his secretaries into millionaires

Dali did not pay wages to the women who worked for him, but offered them small commissions, which were barely enough for them to pay the rent. However, after leaving their posts many of them got well-paid positions thanks to their work with the great artist.

9. Salvador is actually his brother’s name

On August 1, 1903, about 9 months before the birth of Salvador Dali, his brother, also called Salvador, died of gastrointestinal complications at the age of less than 2 years.. When the artist was born, his parents decided to use the name of their deceased son and assured little Dali that he was the reincarnation of his older brother.

It is believed that Dali’s eccentric and narcissistic behavior is due to the fact that he wanted to show by any means that he was different from his late brother.

This event greatly influenced the life and work of the artist. Even in 1963 he made a portrait of his dead brother. Now it has been in the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid since 2013.

8. Dali expelled from art school

The surrealist author refused to take the final exam for his degree on the grounds that none of the school’s teachers were “competent to judge“. However, it is said that the reasons for this decision were more economic than ideological, as his father’s financial aid would stop coming to him as soon as he received his diploma, and Dalí planned to leave for Paris to continue his studies at the expense of his progenitor.

7. Loved cinema

The eccentric artist was not limited to painting. In fact, he was a theorist, director, screenwriter, stage designer and actor in numerous audiovisual projects. He was one of the first to exploit the potential of cinema as a powerful medium.

One of his first projects was the film “Chaos and Creation”, in which he participated with his friend and photographer Philippe Halsman. One of his most famous works is The Andalusian Dog, a surreal short film, which he did not without the help of Luis Buñuel.

In 1946, Walt Disney and Salvado Dali signed a contract to make an animated short film called Destiny. It talked about the importance of time in anticipation of fate. Mexican composer Armando Dominguez performed the music for this short film and the song was performed by Mexican singer Dora Luz. However, the project was never completed at the time, and it wasn’t until 2003 that Disney finished it with Dali’s original sketches.

In 1955, Dali was commissioned to portray Laurence Olivier for a poster for the film Richard III, in which he played the title character. However, the poster was never finished, as Dali refused to paint it in England, where the film studio was located. For him, this country wasthe most disgusting place in the world”, so he decided to return to Spain to finish his work.

However, the final version of the poster was deemed too valuable to be transported, and it remained at Barcelona Airport. In the end, the poster had no commercial use (to the chagrin of director Alexandre Korda) and Dali ended up giving it to Olivier.

6. He almost suffocated in a diving suit

During the London International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936, Dali gave a lecture to a large crowd of people in an antique diving suit, with which he wanted to depict “its existence on the seabed of the subconscious».

In the middle of the act, the artist began to gesticulate exaggeratedly, which was not entirely to the liking of those present. However, the unnatural grimaces and gestures of the Catalan were caused by lack of air. He nearly drowned!

Fortunately, the poet David Gascoigne, also present at the lecture, came to the aid of the artist with the key to the costume when Dali was already on the verge of fainting.

5. Dali was a big fan of cauliflower

In December 1955, Dali surprised the world by filling a white Rolls Royce Phantom II with 500 kg of cauliflower. Then he drove this car from Spain to Paris.

«Everything ends with cauliflower!” the surrealist genius told the press when asked about the strange act. He later added that his attraction to cauliflower was due to “logarithmic curve».

4. Dali had a wild animal at home

As a pet, Salvador Dali kept a real ocelot at home. In the 60s, the artist traveled the world with his inseparable Babu, an impressive feline that he carried with him even to restaurants. When visitors expressed their fear of the wild animal, Dali very calmly explained to them that Babu was nothing more than an ordinary cat that he painted in pop art designs.

3. He married his friend’s wife

Dali met his wife Gala while she was still married to his friend, the French poet Paul Eluard.. Fortunately for the artist, his colleague did not take the news about the novel of his wife and Salvador Dali negatively (on the contrary, he even became a witness at their wedding), but his father, who did not approve of the fact that Gala was already a mother by that time, also ten years older than Dali, he decided to deprive his son of his inheritance.

Gala was Dali’s great love and muse, although there were always rumors about her infidelity to the artist. In 1969, Dali even bought a castle for his beloved wife, in which she could freely spend time with her lovers. As the press reported, she allowed Dali to visit her only by written invitation.

2. His mother died when he was 16

In February 1921, Dali’s mother died of breast cancer.. The artist himself later called this event the biggest blow in his life. Soon his father married the sister of his late wife, that is, Aunt Dali, although this did not seem to upset the artist himself too much.

1. Modesty was not his main virtue

The artist once participated in the What’s My Line contest, in which blindfolded contestants had to guess the identity of a celebrity guest by asking him questions.

The irreverent artist showed his most self-absorbed and, it must be said, funny side by declaring that he was a writer, TV personality, sportsman and cartoonist at the same time.. Of course, his questionable answers only confused the attendees, and even host John Daly had to step in to clean up the mess.