Salvador Dalí 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...Read more

SCULPTURES & OBJECTS

Sculptures and Bas-relief

Ceramics

DALI Symbolism

The elephant is also a recurring image in Dalí's works. It first appeared in his 1944 work Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. The elephants, inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture base in Rome of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk, are portrayed "with long, multijointed, almost invisible legs of desire" along with obelisks on their backs. Coupled with the image of their brittle legs, these encumbrances, noted for their phallic overtones, create a sense of phantom reality. "The elephant is a distortion in space," one analysis explains, "its spindly legs contrasting the idea of weightlessness with structure."I am painting pictures which make me die for joy, I am creating with an absolute naturalness, without the slightest aesthetic concern, I am making things that inspire me with a profound emotion and I am trying to paint them honestly." —Salvador Dalí, in Dawn Ades, Dalí and Surrealism.

The egg is another common Dalíesque image. He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love; it appears in The Great Masturbator and The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. Various animals appear throughout his work as well: ants point to death, decay, and immense sexual desire; the snail is connected to the human head (he saw a snail on a bicycle outside Freud's house when he first met Sigmund Freud); and locusts are a symbol of waste and fear...Read more

Illustrated books & catalogs

DALI - The Hard and the Soft. Sculptures & Objects.
Catalog of the three-dimensional work of Dali, by Robert and Nicolas Descharnes, published by Eccart edition, France in 2003, 285 p.

This book is the first work dedicated exclusively to Dali, the sculptor and visionary. The artist's tridimensional work is shown in 683 illustrations, complete with information relative for each one, and a special description of the bronze sculptures. Read more

Bibliography:

2016 Jean-Luc Pouliquen, Dali, son mécène et le président, CIPP.
2012 Thierry Dufrêne, Double image, double vie, Paris, Hazan, 280p.
2008 Jean-Pierre Thiollet, Carré d'art. Barbey d'Aurevilly, Byron, Dalí, Hallier, Croissy-sur-Seine, Anagramme éd.
2007 Astrid Ruffa, Philippe Kaenel, Danielle Chaperon (éd.), Salvador Dalí à la croisée des savoirs, Paris, Éd. Desjonquères.
2006 Jean-Gabriel Jonin, Jours intimes chez Dalí, Rafael de Surtis-Editinter.
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Monographs & catalogs available