SALVADOR DALI
SURREALIST ART
The Persistence of Memory
DALI (By Man Ray)

•	Spanish painter: he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, where he mastered academic techniques. 
•	Dalí also pursued his personal interest in Cubism and Futurism and was expelled from the academy for indiscipline in 1923. 
•	He formed friendships with Lorca, read Freud with enthusiasm and held his first show in Barcelona (1925), where he exhibited a number of seascapes. 

•	In Paris he met Picasso and Breton, and his involvement from 1929 onwards, his effervescent activity, his flair for getting publicity through scandal and his vivacity which counterbalanced the political difficulties encountered by the group, made him a particularly welcome addition.
•	Dalí's extreme statements on political matters, in particular his fascination for Hitler, opposed Surrealist ethics

•	his relations with the rest of the group became increasingly strained after 1934. 
•	The break finally came (1939)when the painter declared his support for Franco.
•	In 1936, Dalí returned to a classical manner of painting, switching haphazardly between styles. 
•	From 1939 to 1948 he lived in the United States, cultivating his eccentric persona; he earned the nickname Avida Dollars (an anagram of his name) 

•	In Spain he provided a constant source of interest for the gossip columns, which described the parties he threw and his carefully orchestrated 'eccentricity' 
•	 He declared that Meissonier was a better painter than Picasso, that Perpignan railway station was the centre of the world, and that Francoism had saved Spain. These were the sort of statements that people expected of him. 

•	His painting later works, while technically brilliant, were based on ideas that were not perhaps as bold and new (Christ of Saint John of the Cross, 1951, for example, or the Crucifixion of 1954) 
•	uncontrolled print runs and more or less authentic signatures brought discredit on the art market in the 1960s. Such 'scandals', however, like the denunciation of fake Dalís in the 1970s, served to keep the “Dali” myth alive