Surrealism

Born in Figueres, Catalonia, in 1904, died 23 January 1989, Figueres (Spain)

His father was a free-thinker and agnostic who quoted Voltaire and had a volatile temper. Later in life he was to become a Roman Catholic and a Republican.

In 1907, his sister, Ana Maria was born. The young Salvador was the only young male in a female-dominated household, where his over-protective mother, grandmother, aunt and nurse cosseted him. He was prone to tantrums and self-induced coughing fits and, in order to upset his father, deliberately wet the bed until the age of eight, when he discovered that he could upset him more by bad behaviour at school.

His father - in accordance with his free-thinking principles - sent him to a local community school, where he encountered the strange teacher Estaban Trayter and was bullied by the other boys, all of whom came from poor families. After a year, he still couldn’t read or write and his father sent him to the Colegia Hermanos de las Escuelas Cristianas, where he was a lazy pupil.

The family spent its summers at Cadaques on the coast, where Dali produced his first painting at the age of 10.

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