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Birth
Born on 11 May in Figueres (Girona). Son of the notary public Salvador Dalí Cusí and his wife Felipa Domènech Ferrés -
School
The couple's only daughter, Anna Maria, was born. His father enrolled Salvador at the State Primary School, under the teacher Esteve Trayter.
Two years later, and due to that first option having failed, his father decided to enrol Salvador at the Hispano-French School of the Immaculate Conception in Figueres, where he learned French, the language that was to become his cultural vehicle. -
Impressionism
Salvador spent periods on the outskirts of Figueres, at the Molí de la Torre estate owned by the Pichot family, a family of intellectuals and artists; it was there, through the collection owned by the painter Ramon Pichot, that he discovered Impressionism. -
First collaborations
Took part in a group exhibition at the Societat de Concerts rooms in Figueres' Municipal Theatre (which was years later to become the Dalí Theatre-Museum). With a group of grammar-school friends he founded Studium magazine, in which he published his first articles. He began a personal diary entitled Les meves impressions i records íntims (My Personal Impressions and Private Memories), which he continued through the following year. -
Preparation
If he were set on becoming a painter, his father made it a condition that he go to Madrid to study at the Fine Arts School, in order to qualify as a teacher. Dalí accepted to do so. -
Galeries Dalmau
He took part in the Students Original Art Works Competition Exhibition of the Catalan Students' Association, held at Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona, where his work Market was awarded the University Vice-Chancellor's prize. In Madrid, he attended the Special Painting, Sculpture and Engraving School (Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando) -
He came back
He was expelled from the Academia de San Fernando, accused of having led a student protest against the painter Daniel Vázquez Díaz not having been granted the chair of Painting at the Painting School. He returned to Figueres, where he took up his classes again with Juan Núñez, who instructed him in the technique of etching. -
The Iberian Artists Society in Madrid
He took part in the First Exhibition of the Iberian Artists Society in Madrid, while at Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona he presented his first individual exhibition. This was his period of rejecting the vanguard and questing for a pictorial tradition, essentially an Italian one. -
First individual exhibition
Staged his first individual exhibition at Galerie Pierre Colle in Paris, where he exhibited his work The Persistence of Memory. He also took part in the first surrealist exhibition in the United States, held at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. His book L'amour et la mémoire (Love and Memory). -
Wedding
Enters into civil matrimony with Gala (née Elena Ivanovna Diakonova). He exhibited at the Exposition du Cinquantenaire in the Salon des Indépendants of the Grand Palais in Paris, without taking account of the opinion of the rest of the surrealists, who had decided not to participate in it, which nearly led to Dalí being expelled from the group led by Breton. -
Migration
When the German troops entered Bordeaux, the Dalí couple went to live in the United States, where they were to remain until 1948. -
The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí
New York's Dial Press published The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí finished the year before. -
Alfred Hitchcock
He went to Hollywood to work with Alfred Hitchcock on the film Spellbound, whose dreamlike sequences were created by Dalí. The Bignou Gallery inaugurated the exhibition Recent Paintings by Salvador Dalí. This served as the occasion for Dalí to present the first volume of Dali News, which he published himself and which dealt solely with the artist and his oeuvre. -
Return to Spain
He published 50 Secrets of Magic. The Dalí couple returned to Spain. -
Dante's The Divine Comedy
At the Palazzo Pallavicini in Rome he exhibited his drawings to illustrate Dante's The Divine Comedy. He produced illustrations for various books: La verdadera historia de Lidia de Cadaqués (The True Story of Lídia of Cadaqués) by Eugeni d'Ors and Balada del sabater d'Ordis (Balad of the Cobbler of Ordis) by Carles Fages de Climent, for which Dalí also wrote the epilogue. -
They married
On August 8th Dalí and Gala were married at the Els Àngels shrine in Sant Martí Vell, near Girona. -
Homage
The period of gestation of the Dalí Theatre-Museum began this year. In August, his native city paid homage to him. -
Award winner
He was awarded the Gran Cruz de Isabel la Católica, the highest Spanish distinction. A great retrospective exhibition was inaugurated in Tokyo, organised by Mainichi Newspapers, and then went on to travel to various Japanese cities. Éditions de La Table Ronde published Journal d'un génie (Diary of a Genius). -
The Passions according to Dalí
He took part in the exhibition Dada-Surrealism and their Heritage held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As an outcome of his conversations with Louis Pauwels there appeared the book Les passions selon Dalí (The Passions according to Dalí). The year also saw the publication of Dalí de Draeger, in which the painter collaborated and wrote the prologue. -
Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France.
He was appointed associate overseas member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France. A major Dalí retrospective was inaugurated at the Georges-Pompidou Centre in Paris, as well as the '"environnement" he had specially designed for the centre. By then well into the 1980s he was to paint his last works, basically taking their inspiration from Michelangelo and Raphael, whom he had always admired. -
Death
Dalí died in Figueres on 23 January 1989. A major retrospective exhibition Salvador Dalí, 1904-1989 was held at the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, and was shown later at the Kunsthaus in Zurich.
