9 Things You Should Know About Salvador Dalí
1. He had a massive ego, which nearly got him killed.
Salvador Dali loved to make a scene and fuel his own vanity. He was never one to shy away from his self-proclaimed genius, and never passed up the opportunity for an outrageous stunt.
He once showed up to his lecture with the International Surrealists Group in 1936 dressed in a scuba suit, complete with a snugly-bolted helmet. The intention of the suit was undoubtedly to show off his unique individualism. Suffocating and unable to breathe, Dali finally escaped the suit thanks to the help of his wife and a hammer. The audience appreciated the moment, suffocating suit and all, as an emblem of that crazy man Dali.
Another time, he appeared on the show What’s My Line, where a panel of blindfolded judges attempted to guess the identity of the show’s guest based on his answers to their questions. Dali fancied himself a Renaissance man, and claimed to be known for his performances, athletics, writing, and art. At one point, a frustrated questioner exclaimed, “There’s nothing this man doesn’t do!”
2. He illustrated a special edition of Alice in Wonderland.
Most people wouldn’t associate the Surrealist artist with a work of children’s literature, but turns out Lewis Carroll’s 1865 classic children’s book had just the right amount of dreamy eccentricity for Dali.
Or maybe he was just offered an enormous paycheck. Dali’s lifestyle wasn’t cheap–he divided his time between hotels in Paris and New York, which he would completely trash before vacating the penthouses. His lavish life was supported by commercial work in the 1950s and 60s, which damaged his reputation as a serious artist. He designed window displays, appeared in commercials, and even illustrated a book of Mao Zedong’s poems.
3. He’s responsible for this creepy mashup of Mao Zedong and Marilyn Monroe’s faces.
Before the days of Photoshop, photographer Philippe Halsman and Dali created this portrait in 1952, combining America’s enemy and favorite celebrity into one disconcerting face.
4. At university, he was in love with poet Federico Garcia Lorca.
Dali’s sexuality has long been in question, as has his relationship with his friend Lorca. Though the pair mostly likely never had a sexual relationship, their friendship continued from their time at school in 1923 to Lorca’s death in 1936. According to Dali, he resisted Lorca’s attempts at seduction, although letters between the two might suggest he was tempted to give in. He wrote to Lorca in a 1928:
“You are a Christian storm and you are in need of some of my paganism […] I will go get you and give you some seaside medicine. It will be winter and we will light a fire. The poor beasts will be trembling with the cold. You will recall that you are an inventor of marvelous things and we will live together with a portrait machine…”
5. Dali was a virgin when he met his wife Gala.
In 1929, when Dali met Gala, she was muse to the Surrealist group and married to writer Paul Eluard. Twenty-five year old Dali suffered from anxiety around sex– his fear of impotency is seen in works from this time such as The Great Masturbator and Little Ashes. Gala, confident in Dali’s potential, sought him out as her new lover, and pair soon married.
He was so devoted to her that he began signing his work as “Gala Dali.” He even bought her a castle, where he was only permitted to visit with a written invitation. Gala was perhaps not quite as devoted–she entertained many lovers through her life, though she continued to love Salvador.
6. He was terrified of grasshoppers.
Dali often used grasshoppers to symbolize fear in his work. Rumor has it when he was a child, other children used to throw grasshoppers at him. The terror allegedly kicked in when he realized the grasshoppers had faces like fish.
7. Those melting watches in The Persistence of Memory are inspired by cheese.
As the story goes, Dali was supposed to go see a movie with Gala and their friends, but at the last minute felt under the weather and decided to stay home. They had topped off their meal with soft Camembert cheese, and as Dali relaxed at the table, he noticed the landscape he’d been working on of Port Lligat. It was unfinished–but suddenly Dali knew how to complete it. Ignoring his headache, he added three flaccid, melting watches to his painting.
Dali used the paranoiac-critical method in working on his Surrealist paintings, meaning he’d surrender himself to a paranoid state in order to break down his mental barriers and see connections between things that aren’t related. Cheese and watches? Makes perfect sense.
Oh, and that fleshy creature in the center of the picture? That’s Dali.
8. The Persistence of Memory has a sequel.
It’s called The Deconstruction of the Persistence of Memory (1951), a response to the original painting.
9. He killed a boy.
Or so he claimed. His autobiography The Secret Life of Salvador Dali was a bed of fabrications, written as an entertaining piece of propaganda for the rise of Dali, the wacky mustachioed celebrity. Many of his accounts in this book are suspect, including one where he claimed to have pushed a boy to his death when he was a child.
