Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Salvador Dali

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

He was a painter, a writer, sculptor, photographer, and one of the most significant avant-garde artists of the 20th century. He was also a showman, celebrity, and one of the well-known personalities in the world. ...and he had one of the most famous mustaches in history. Learn more about Salvador Dali on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He was a painter, a writer, sculptor, photographer, and one of the most significant avant-garde artists of the 20th century. He was also a showman, celebrity, and one of the most well-known personalities in the world. And he also had one of the most famous mustaches in history. Learn more about Salvador Dali on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by the tourist office of Spain. If you're interested in art, then you'll find some of the best museums in the world in Spain. Madrid has the Prado and the Renia Sophia Museum of Modern Art. In Barcelona, you'll find the National Museum of Art in Catalonia.

Bilbao has the Guggenheim Museum, and there are museums dedicated to some of Spain's greatest artists, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and Joanne Miro. You can start researching your dream trip to Spain today by visiting spain.in. Where you can get everything you need to know to plan your Spanish art adventure. Once again, that's Spain.info.

Salvador Domingo Felipe Yaquinto, Dali, and Domarech was born in 1904 in the town of Figueres, north of Barcelona. His parents were solidly middle class and his father was an attorney. His parents also had a son which was born before Salvador, who died at the age of two just nine months before he was born. The name of this child was also Salvador. Given the name of his older brother and the timing of his death just nine months before he was born, Salvador grew up hearing stories about how he was the reincarnation of his brother.

His deceased brother was something he obsessed about his entire life, and his brother would make appearances in several of his future works of art. He had an early interest in art, which was supported by his parents. At the age of 12, he attended the Municipal Drawing School in Figueres, and at 18 he attended the Royal Academy of Arts in Madrid. It was here that he began to exhibit many of the characteristics which would define him later on. He was extremely well-dressed, highly eccentric, and began to do so.

shown interest in avant-garde art. He developed a habit of going to the Prado Museum every Sunday to study the Masters and practice his drawing technique. He would continue to visit the Prado throughout his life and considered it the greatest museum in the world. He began studying Cubist artists, and at the age of 21, he had his first exhibition of his work in Madrid. In May, 1925, he contributed 11 paintings for a group exhibition which received positive reviews. In November that year, he had his first solo exhibition. His wife, he had his first solo exhibition. His work was a mixture of avant-garde cubism and traditional realism. In 1926, he met his idol Picasso in Paris, who had heard good things about the artist.

At this time, he left the Academy of Art without technically graduating, and began to create work that was influenced by the Surrealist School. Surrealism was an art movement that created images that came from dreams or from the unconscious mind. Unlike other modern art movements which abstracted images, most surrealist paintings were not abstract. A horse, for example, would look like a horse, and not a bunch of cubes representing a horse like in cubism. However, the subjects were put in scenes that didn't really make any sense in reality. Sort of like how your dreams might have their own internal logic that doesn't make

any sense once you wake up. In 1929, Dolly worked with one of his art school classmates, Louis Bruniel, to create a short film called Unchin Andalau. The movie was only 21 minutes long and was silent. It was one of the first surrealest films ever created, and it's actually considered a landmark in cinema. There's no conventional plot. It's a collection of clips that are otherwise disjointed, and it's best known for its opening montage of an eye cutting to the image of a moon, and then a razor blade cutting through the eye. The film was a surprising hit. Bruniel claimed that he had put rocks in his pocket for the premiere to throw back at the crowd if they got violent. Bruniel went on to have a 50-year career in filmmaking.

Dolly during this period began to grow his trademark thin mustache and met the woman he would later marry, the Russian 10 years as senior, Gala. He began to develop the technique which he became famous for, called the paranoiac critical method. This involved the use of optical illusions and images within images. In 1931, he created perhaps his most famous painting, the persistence of memory. It's best known for his images of melting clocks, and this image today is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In 1934, he made his first visit to the United States, where he began to cement his public reputation for saying outlandish things and where he became a true celebrity. He was quoted in the papers in New York on this trip as having said, quote,

The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad. In 1936 at an exhibition in London, he arrived wearing a diving suit and a helmet, while holding a pool queue with two dogs on leashes. The same year, he took part an exhibit at the MoMA in New York and had made the cover of Time magazine. He was only 32 years old. As the 30s progressed, he and his work became ever more famous. However, he began to split with the rest of the Surrealist movement. The Surrealists had become increasingly political, supporting left-wing causes, and the Republic during the side of the Spanish Civil War. Dali remained mostly apolitical, and never really took a side in the Civil War.

He was rejected by other Surrealists as a sellout, and most of them broke off communications with him. When World War II began, he and his wife managed to escape France and spent the duration of the war in the United States. While in the U.S., he declared surrealism dead and claimed to return to classicism. However, his paintings still contained dolly elements of hidden images, and many art critics said that his work hadn't really changed that much. In 1942, he released his autobiography, and in 1994, a novel titled Hidden Faces. He also worked on a host of projects that had nothing to do with painting. He did set designs for ballets. He worked on designs for commercial packaging, and even designed window displays for department stores. In 1946, he started a collaboration with

Walt Disney on an animated film called Destino, which wasn't released until 2003. It's a six-and-a-half-minute animated short, which can be seen online. It's actually not that bad. Think of a more artistic version of Fantasia. In 1948, Dahlia's wife Gala returned to Spain and lived in their home in Porteagat on the Costa Brava. This move back to Spain caused a further break with other artists who interpreted it as a support for Franco. He also saw relations with the rest of his family deteriorate. His sister wrote a book about him, which angered him, and when his father died, he left Dolly

nothing in his will. In the late 40s and 50s, his work began to take on a more religious tone, invoking many Catholic themes. He also worked more elements of science and mathematics into his images, alongside the religious imagery. One image is that of Christ crucified on a four-dimensional cube. Adams and DNA have also appeared in his work as well. In the 50s and 60s, Dolly developed into a full-blown media personality.

His waxed upturned mustache became his calling card. He would frequently appear on television in Europe and the United States. In the 1950s, he appeared as a guest on the TV game show, What's My Line, and answered yes to almost every question asked of him by the panel. In the 1960s, he began to work on his theater-slash-muches, museum in his hometown of Figueres. In the 1980s, his health began to deteriorate. His wife passed away in 1982, and in the same year he was given a title of nobility by the King of Spain, Juan Carlos. The Marquis de Dali de Poubal. On January 23, 1989, Dali passed away at the age of 84.

He's buried in a crypt of his own design at his museum in Figueres, only 400 meters from the place he was born. Dali's legacy was wide-reaching. Andy Warhol credited him with being a huge influence on pop art. He dabbled in almost every form of art, from novels to theater to film, as well as, of course, sculpture and painting. Today, there are not one, but two museums dedicated to his work. His own museum in Figueres, and also one in St. Petersburg, Florida. Dolly was an arrogant self-promoter, but he was also unquestionably brilliant and one of the most important artists of the 20th century. The associate producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Thor Thompson.

If you'd like to support the show, please donate over at patreon.com. There is content only available to supporters, merchandise, and even opportunities for a show producer credit. If you know someone you think would enjoy the show, please share it with them. Also remember, if you leave a five-star review, I'll read your review on the show. No one never knows what to expect from my next guest. He is to say the least an unusual man. He has a new collection of 12 original graphics that are called Memories of Surrealism. which will be available shortly

at the Allen Rich galleries here in New York. We'll be seeing some of those later in the show and we will certainly be seeing him. He is one of the most colorful people I know. Odd is another word that's been applied. But he is a man who once said about himself

the only difference between myself and a madman is that I am not mad. We'll see. Will you welcome, please, Salvador Dali. Thank you.