In the Catalonian town of Figueras, near Barcelona, Dali was born on May 11, 1904. His family encouraged his early interest in art; a room in the family home was the young artist's first studio. In 1921 Dali enrolled at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. There he joined an avant-garde circle of students that included filmmaker Luis Bunuel and poet-dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca. Although Dali did very well in his studies, he was expelled from school because of his eccentric dress and behavior.

It was at this time that Dali came under the influence of two forces that shaped his philosophy and his art. The first was Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious. The second was his association with the French surrealists, a group of artists and writers led by the French poet Andre Breton. In 1928, with the help of the Spanish painter Joan Miro, Dali visited Paris for the first time and was introduced to the leading surrealists. The next year he settled there, becoming in a short time one of the best-known members of the group. During the 1930s his paintings were included in surrealist shows in most major European cities and in the United States.

Under the influence of the surrealist movement, Dali's style crystallized into the disturbing blend of precise realism and dreamlike fantasy that became his hallmark. Against desolate landscapes he painted unrelated and often bizarre objects. These pictures, described by Dali as "hand-painted dream photographs," were inspired by dreams, hallucinations, and other unconscious forces that the artist was unable to explain; they were produced by a creative method he called "paranoiac-critical activity." Dali's most characteristic works also showed the influence of the Italian Renaissance masters, the mannerists, and the Italian metaphysical painters Carlo Carra and Giorgio de Chirico.

During World War II Dali and his wife, Gala, took refuge in the United States, but after the war they returned to Spain. His international reputation continued to grow, based as much on his showy life-style and flair for publicity as on his prodigious output of paintings, graphic works, book illustrations, and designs for jewelry, textiles, clothing, costumes, and stage sets. Dali died in Figueras on Jan. 23, 1989.

Dali produced two films 'An Andalusian Dog', released in 1928, and 'The Golden Age' (1930) with Bunuel. Considered surrealist classics, they are filled with grotesque images. His writings include poetry, fiction, and a controversial autobiography, 'The Secret Life of Salvador Dali' (1942). 'The Persistence of Memory', painted in 1931, is perhaps the most widely recognized surrealist painting in the world.