Later in Life
Late in his career, Dali did not confine himself to painting; he experimented with many unusual or new media and processes. For example, he made bulletist works and was among the first artists to employ holography in an artistic manner. Several of his works incorporate optical illusions.
Dali also had an interest in natural science and mathematics. This is manifested in several of his paintings, notably in the 1950s, when he painted his subjects as composed of rhinoceros horns- signifying divine geometry (as the rhinoceros horn grows according to a logarithmic spiral) and chastity (as Dali linked the rhinoceros to the Virgin Mary). Dali was also fascinated by DNA and the hypercube; the latter, a 4-dimensional cube, is featured in the painting Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus).
Over the next few years Dali devoted himself with passionate intensity to developing his method, which he described as “paranoiac-critical”: a “spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the critical and systematic objectivation of delirious associations and interpretations”. It enabled him to demonstrate his personal obsessions and fantasies by uncovering and meticulously fashioning hidden forms within pre-existing ones.
Dali spent his remaining years back in his beloved Catalonia starting in 1949. Many critics consider that he did little if anything of consequence after his classic Surrealist works of the 1930s. However, up and coming artists like Andy Warhol, proclaimed Dali an important influence in their works.
The fact that Dali chose to live in Spain, while General Franco was in control, drew criticism from progressives and many other artists. As such, probably at least some of the common dismissal of Dali’s later works had more to do with politics than the actual merits of the works themselves.
In 1960, Dali began work on the Dali Theatre and Museum in his home town of Figueres; it was his largest single project and the main focus of his energy through 1974. He continued to make additions through the mid-1980s.
King Juan Carlos bestowed Dali with the title Marquis of Pubol in 1982. Dali later paid him back by giving him a drawing “Head of Europa,” which would turn out to be Dali’s final drawing, after the king visited him on his deathbed.
He moved from Figueres to the castle in Pubol that he had bought for Gala. The castle was the site of her death on June 10, 1982. After Gala’s death, Dali lost much of his will to live. He deliberately dehydrated himself—possibly as a suicide attempt, possibly in an attempt to put his body into a state of suspended animation, as he had read that some microorganisms could do. In 1984, a fire broke out in his bedroom under unclear circumstances—possibly a suicide attempt by Dali, possibly simple negligence by his staff. In any case, Dali was rescued and returned to Figueres where a group of his friends, patrons and fellow artists saw to it that he was comfortable living in his theater-museum for his final years.
He died of heart failure at Figueres on Jan. 23, 1989, at the age of 84. He is buried in the crypt of his Teatro-Museo in Figueres.
There have been allegations that Dali’s guardians forced him to sign blank canvasses that would later (even after his death) be used and sold as originals. As a result, art dealers tend to be wary of late works attributed to Dali.