Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali was born on the morning of May 11th, 1904 in the small agricultural town of Figueres, Spain. He was named after his elder brother Salvador, who died shortly before Dali was born. Dali spent his childhood in Figueres and at the family's summer home in the coastal fishing village of Cadaques where his parents built his first studio. From an early age, Dalí was encouraged to practice his art and would eventually go on to study at an academy in Madrid. In the 1920s, he went to Paris and began interacting with artists such as Picasso, Magritte and Miró, which led to Dalí's first Surrealist phase. He is perhaps best known for his 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory, showing melting clocks in a landscape setting. As an adult, he made his home with his wife Gala in nearby Port Lligat. Many of his paintings reflect his love of this area of Spain. Dalí died in Figueres in 1989.
One major aspect of Dalí’s complete lifework is the creation of a collection of bronze museum sculptures.
The passion and overwhelming desire to express himself sculpturally lasted throughout his entire life span, dating from 1934 until 1987. Dalí was fascinated by this form of transformation and created original maquettes and designs to be made into surreal sculptures and objects. In this way, Dalí’s creative genius manifests into three-dimensionality, bringing form to sculptures which are amongst the most famous and beloved iconographic images created by Dalí during his lifetime.
Dalí used certain items and events from his childhood which appear recurrently in his work as icons, which are in fact rich in emotional
meaning. These items embody some of Dalí’s strongest beliefs; his obsession with time, as depicted in his notorious 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory, is also present in his sculptures Profile of Time and Nobility of Time; his fascination with beauty and the female form can be seen in the Space Venus and the Woman Aflame sculptures; the crutch, another familiar motif in Dalí’s work symbolising support and stability which features in Alice in Wonderland and Snail and the Angel.
Over the past twenty five years, these sculptures have toured over eighty prestigious museums and locations and have been seen by more than ten million people. This extraordinary collection brings to light a previously unknown aspect of Dalí’s work, allowing sculpture to take on a more important role.
Inspired by his most famous paintings, Dalí’s bronze sculptures represent a significant aspect of three dimensional surrealism and bear witness to the expressive force of his surrealistic iconographic images.
(Biographical information courtesy of Daliuniverse.com)