HAPPY BIRTHDAY SALVADOR DALI!!!

May 11, 1904

Salvador Dali was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work.

Born in Figueres, Catalonia, Dalí received his formal education in fine arts in Madrid. Influenced by Impressionism and the Renaissance masters from a young age, he became increasingly attracted to Cubism and avant-garde movements. He moved closer to Surrealism in the late 1920s and joined the Surrealist group in 1929, soon becoming one of its leading exponents. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931, and is one of the most famous Surrealist paintings. Dalí lived in France throughout the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) before leaving for the United States in 1940 where he achieved commercial success.

Image:

La Femme aux Cheveux d'or et son Garde, 1967

Ink and Watercolor

12.75 x 17.75 in

La Femme aux Cheveus d'or et son Garde is a unique watercolor and ink on paper executed in 1967. Signed, lower right. The work relates to the frontispiece for Poemes Secret, a suite of 18 etchings commissioned by Pierre Argillet based on the writings of Guillaume Apollinaire, a French writer important to the literary development of the Surrealism movement. In this work, Dali illustrates the sensual poems Apollinaire wrote in love letters he sent to the schoolteacher Madeleine Pagès from the battle trenches of World War I. A bare breasted Madelaine is featured with an appendage supported by a crutch, her golden tresses cascading down her back as a guard (presumably Apollinaire) wearing a flamboyantly plumed hat, stands watch next to her with spear in hand