Salvador Dali's Biography: Main Topics

 Salvador Dali was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. His father was an atheist lawyer who was very strict in Dali’s upbringing. Dali’s mother, on the other hand, was loving and encouraged him to be artistic. He has an older brother named Salvador Dali as well however, he passes away before Dali was born. He also had a younger sister named Anna Maria Dali. Even though he never met his older brother, he still had an impact on Dali. Later in his life, he even made a portrait of his older brother. 

And according to The Guardian, his sister would model for Dali during his early days. However, later on, they ended their relationship. His childhood was fairly normal and being in a middle class family, he didn’t have much difficulties. Every summer, his family would go to vacation in Cadaqués where he liked to draw his surrounding. Cadaques would later appear in many to Dali’s work. According to Phila Museum, He went to art school, but he didn’t like school because he thought it was restricting. He was able to draw and paint very well since a young age. He was also able to learn about art through his family friend and artist, Ramón Pichot. Pichot taught Dali about modern art. At the age of fourteen, Dali had his first exhibit which was organized by his father. It showcased Dali’s charcoal drawings. Unfortunately, his loving mother passes due to medical conditions when he was sixteen which upset him.

In 1922, Dali went to San Fernando Academy of Art in Madrid. While there, he met many other intellectual, with whom Dali collaborated later on. He experimented with different art style, and he seemed to enjoy his time there. He used cubism, futurism. At the time, his style hadn’t matured or become the art we associate with Dali. His peers in fact were very interested by his art styles. He did exceptionally well in art school, and receive prizes as well (namely, University Vice-Chancellor's prize). However, he felt like he wasn’t being challenged enough, and he was perhaps getting bored. So he went back to his old ways of mischief and challenging the authority. 

He disagreed with professors at more than one occasion. At one point, he was kicked out of the college because went on a protest with some of his peers which was a challenge to the authority and against a painter. However, after some time, he went back to the same university, even though he had to repeat a year, but he didn’t complete his time in school. This was in 1926, and this is when his “adventures” began because he dipped his toes into surrealism and painting what he wanted without restriction. In a sense, he was experimenting. He started doing exhibitions and his art work started to get weirder and strangers.