Dali’s dead brother
Portrait of my Dead Brother, 1963
Dali was given the same name as a brother who died at the age of 21 months, nine months before Salvador’s birth. He was also given his dead brother’s clothes and toys. As a child, this made Dali obsessed with proving his own existence. He would often visit the grave that bore his own name. This seemed to have an adverse effect on Dali for the duration of his life.
“Throughout the whole of my childhood and youth I lived with the perception that I was a part of my dead brother. That is, in my body and my soul, I carried the clinging carcass of this dead brother because my parents were constantly speaking about the other Salvador.”