Just the Facts

A Short Chronology

 

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Salvador Dali 1904-1989

  • 1904 Salvador Dali is born in Figueras, Spain. From a very early age his talent for drawing is apparent.
  • 1918 Dali is featured in an exibition in Figueras, which attracts attention from critics.
  • 1921 Dali’s mother dies. He is accepted into the San Fernando Academy of Arts in Madrid.
  • 1923 Dali makes trouble, criticizes his lecturers and is expelled from the Academy. Later that year, he is arrested for political reasons and is detained for 35 days.
  • 1925 He has his first solo exhibition in Barcelona.
  • 1926 He meets Picasso and visits Paris for the first time.
  • 1927 Dali serves in the military from February to October.
  • 1929 Dali and Bunuel premiere “Un chien andalou” and officially join the Paris Surrealists. Dali begins to see Gala.
  • 1930 He develops his paranoic-critical method. Right-wing extremists trash the theater where “L’age d’or” is playing.
  • 1932 Dali exhibits the first Surrealist show in the United States.
  • 1934 He paints “The Enigma of William Tell,” which leads to arguments with Andre Breton and other Surrealists.
  • 1936 He makes the cover to Time magazine.
  • 1939 Andre Breton dubs Dali “Avida Dollors” and the break with the Paris Surrealists is final.
  • 1940 Dali and Gala remain in exile in New York until 1948.
  • 1942 “The Secret Life of Salvador Dali” is published in the U.S.
  • 1946 He designs sequences for Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “Spellbound” and draws cartoons for Walt Disney.
  • 1949 Dali and Gala go home to Spain.
  • 1951 He begins his “particle” period.
  • 1952-1961 Dali has many exhibitions world-wide. He paints large-format mystical works.
  • 1964 Dali publishes “Diary of a Genius.”
  • 1971 The Salvador Dali Museum opens in Cleveland, Ohio. The museum is transferred to Saint Petersburg, Florida in 1982.
  • 1978 Dali becomes a member of the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
  • 1982 Gala dies and Dali lives out the rest of his days in the castle he bought for her.
  • 1983 Dali paints his last picture, “The Swallowtail.”
  • 1989 Dali dies of heart failure on January 23. He leaves his works and fortune to the Spanish state.