Unusual Salvador Dali and His Art

Among the most famous men of the 20th century was the artist Salvador Dali. Dali stood out from other artists because of his trademark mustache, personality, fashion sense, and also being a showman.

Childhood

Dali had a strange childhood. His parents named their first child Salvador and the child died at 22 months of age. So when their second child was born they also named him Salvador and this child resembled his dead brother. Therefore his parents thought that perhaps this second child was the reincarnation of their dead son.

When Dali reached the age of five his parents took him to his dead brother’s grave site for the first time and actually told him that they thought he might be the reincarnation of his dead sibling. Of course, this affected Dali psychologically and his later artwork included allusions to the dead child he actually believed was the best part of him.

Other strange things continued to occur and during his childhood, Dali had a most disturbing habit of attacking people for no apparent reason. Once when he and a friend were walking across a bridge Dali saw that a safety railing was missing. Since no one was around he decided to toss his friend off of the bridge. As a result, his friend fell about 5 meters landing on sharp, jagged rocks, and got seriously injured. You would think that this would disturb Dali in some way. Instead, Dali, who was five sat by watching his friend’s mother taking care of him, and as she walked by pouring out bowls of bloody water he just smiled and continued eating cherries.

Another disturbing incident happened when Dali was taking care of a wounded bat. One day he noticed that the bat had been overtaken by ants and was slowly being eaten alive. Dali’s reaction was to take the bat and bite into it ants and all.

Avida Dollars

Dali was well-known for his love of making money. Some people called him “Avida Dollars”. This was an anagram of Salvador Dali and also about his greed. Everyone knew that Dali would do practically anything to make a buck. It was Dali, who designed the famous Chupa Chups lollipop logo and the 1969 logo for the Eurovision Song Contest. The artist has also appeared in ads for Lanvin chocolates, brandy, and Alka seltzer. These all were his ways of making money legally but in a way, he was also a con man. When it came to selling one of his paintings for an astronomical amount he told his rich customer that the paint he had used had been mixed with the venom of a million wasps. Another scam involved Yoko Ono, who had requested a strand of hair from his mustache and for it Dali asked for $10,000. Ono paid him the money and he sent her a dried blade of grass. He imagined that his real hair could be used for incantations or such things.

Dali was even clever enough to find a way to avoid paying restaurant bills. He was in the habit of inviting large groups of friends to expensive lunches. When the lunch was over Dali would write up a check for the amount. Actually what he did was to doodle on the check knowing full well that no one would cash that check knowing that it had an original sketch by Dali on it and so he got away with not paying the restaurant bill.

Showman

Besides being an artist Dali was also a showman and he performed some really interesting stunts. Wearing a full deep-sea diving suit he gave a lecture. He arrived to give a speech in a Rolls-Royce full of cauliflower just because he found this vegetable unusually shaped. Dali created a hospital atmosphere in a Manhattan bookstore in New York City to sell his book.“The World of Salvador Dali”. Dali lay in a hospital bed with fake doctors and nurses around him, hooked up to a machine measuring his brain waves. Any customer who brought a book got a copy of the reading from the machine. Then it was time for cauliflower again and this time Dali filled up a limo with the vegetable while driving through the streets of Paris and actually handed out cauliflower to very confused Parisians.

Obsession with Hitler

Dali had an unusual obsession with Hitler. During the rise of the Nazis Dali preferred to paint Hitler. One of his paintings looks like a landscape but is actually a photo of Hitler turned sideways and created to look like a placid lake. He seemed totally obsessed by Hitler and the fascination in itself was rather bizarre.

Collaboration with Photographer Philippe Halsman

A collaboration developed between Dali and famous photographer Philippe Halsman. Together they created “Dali Atomicus” which is an ode to Dali’s famous painting “Leda Atomica”. This photo depicts Dali, furniture, and several cats suspended in mid-air. It is most unusual especially that it was done at a time before Photoshop or special programs to help create the special effects. Amazingly it was made the old-fashioned way with the furniture held up by wires while Dali jumped and someone out of the frame threw a bucket of cold water and added in some live cats. To get what they wanted the photographer and the artist had to redo the shot 28 times.

Artwork

It was the oddest thing the way Dali got his inspiration. One way was with a tin plate and a spoon. Dali would sit in a chair holding the spoon above the plate and nod off. As he was falling asleep the spoon would drop upon the plate, it made a noise loud enough to wake up the artist and he jotted down the surreal images he had seen in his dreams. Other times he would stand on his head until he practically passed out letting himself become semi-lucid. This became his most famous technique and it was called the “Paranoid-Critical Method”. It involved creating a self-induced paranoid state that let him draw irrational relationships between unconnected objects and depict the landscape of his own subconscious mind.

When It Came to Love

It was in August of 1929 that Dali met Elena Ivanovna Diakonova, known as Gala, who became the love of his life. The problem was that Gala was already married to French surrealist poet Paul Eluard. Her relationship with Dali could develop because Gala and her husband had an “open marriage”. When she finally got divorced, she and Dali got married in 1934 and stayed together until her death in 1982.

They never had a traditional marriage and during their time together also saw other people but had an extremely happy relationship. Eventually Gala became Dali’s muse and business manager. At this time Dali would often sign his artwork with both of their names. He built her a castle in Spain in 1968. They had an agreement about the castle that Dali could visit her there only after he had obtained her permission in writing.

Jewelry Creations

Even though at the time, Dali seemed to be a lunatic he was actually a genius. You can see this in the Dali Joies, a collection of jewelry designed by Dali in collaboration with American millionaire Cummins Catherwood. Catherwood provided millions of dollars worth of precious stones that Dali created into many exquisite pieces. The collection was produced in New York under the supervision of Argentinean silversmith Carlos Alemany. Altogether 39 pieces of jewelry were made, which exchanged hands many times before they were finally sold to the Salvador Dali Foundation for 5.5 million Euros in 1999.

The central piece called The Royal Heart was crafted from pure gold and dotted with 46 rubies, 42 diamonds, and two emeralds. The most unusual thing about this piece is that it beats like a human heart.

Famous Friends

Dali had many famous friends such as Elvis Presley, John Lennon, David Bowie, Pablo Picasso, and even Sigmund Freud. However, of all of them, his most unusual acquaintance was rock legend Alice Cooper. It was in 1973 that Dali heard about Cooper and his stage show and the artist asked to meet him and his manager. Dali showed up for the meeting with Cooper in a giraffe-skinned coat, sparkly socks, and curly, elastic boots. The artist asked for a cup of hot water, took out a jar of honey from his pocket and with a pair of scissors cut the dripping strand of honey into the hot water. Along with him arrived an entourage of beautiful teenagers all dressed in robes and saying nothing.

As things progressed they got ever stranger. Dali presented Cooper with a plaster sculpture of this brain, crowned by a chocolate éclair with real ants running down the middle, and asked the rocker to model for him. Cooper agreed and modeled under an armed guard because he wore a diamond tiara provided by Dali and worth $2 million. His creation was an amazing hologram of Cooper covered in diamonds and biting the head of a Venus de Milo statuette. Dali managed to accomplish this by using lasers in order to capture a three-dimensional image.

Popular Salvador Dali Artwork

1931 The Persistence of Memory is known as a masterpiece of Surrealism. It can be seen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

1937 Metamorphosis of Narcissus an oil-on canvas artwork depicting the Greek fable of Narcissus.

1937 Swans Reflecting Elephants a picture by Dali during his paranoid-critical era. It is an oil on canvas depicting the artist's renowned double images.

1944 Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. The lady depicted in the painting is Dali's wife Gala. It can be seen at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, Spain.