Dalà was introduced to America by art dealer Julian Levy in 1934, and the exhibition of Dalà works (including Persistence) in New York created an immediate sensation. Social Register listees feted him at a specially organized "Dali Ball". He showed up wearing on his chest a glass case containing a brassiere.In 1936, Dalà took part in the London International Surrealist Exhibition. His lecture entitled Fantomes paranoiaques authentiques was delivered wearing a deep-sea diving suit. He had arrived carrying a billiard cue and leading a pair of Russian wolfhounds, and had to have the helmet unscrewed as he gasped for breath. He commented that "I just wanted to show that I was 'plunging deeply' into the human mind.When Francisco Franco came to power in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, Dalà was one of the few Spanish intellectuals supportive of the new regime, which put him at odds with his predominantly Marxist surrealist fellows over politics, eventually resulting in his official expulsion from this group. At this, Dalà retorted, "Le surréalisme, c'est moi." André Breton coined the anagram "avida dollars" (for Salvador DalÃ), which more or less translates to "eager for dollars," by which he referred to Dalà after the period of his expulsion; the surrealists henceforth spoke of Dalà in the past tense, as if he were dead. The surrealist movement and various members thereof (such as Ted Joans) would continue to issue extremely harsh polemics against Dalà until the time of his death and beyond. As World War II started in Europe, Dalà and Gala moved to the United States in 1940, where they lived for eight years. After the move, Dalà returned to the practice of Catholicism. In 1942, he published his autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador DalÃ.
In 1929, Dalà collaborated with the surrealistic film director Luis Buñuel on the short film Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog). He was mainly responsible for helping Buñuel write the script for the film. Dalà later claimed to have been more heavily involved in the filming of the project, but this is not substantiated by contemporary accounts. Also that year he met his muse, inspiration, and future wife Gala, born Helena Dmitrievna Deluvina Diakonova, a Russian immigrant eleven years his senior who was then married to the surrealist poet Paul Éluard. In the same year, Dalà had important professional exhibitions and officially joined the surrealist group in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris (although his work had already been heavily influenced by surrealism for two years). The surrealists hailed what Dalà called the Paranoiac-critical method of accessing the subconscious for greater artistic creativity.In 1931, Dalà painted one of his most famous works, The Persistence of Memory. Sometimes called Soft Watches or Melting Clocks, the work introduced the surrealistic image of the soft, melting pocket watch. The general interpretation of the work is that the soft watches debunk the assumption that time is rigid or deterministic, and this sense is supported by other images in the work, such as the wide expanding landscape and the ants and fly devouring the other watches.Dalà and Gala, having lived together since 1929, were married in 1934 in a civil ceremony (They remarried in a Catholic ceremony in 1958).
Starting in 1949, Dalà spent his remaining years back in his beloved Catalonia. The fact that he chose to live in Spain while it was ruled by Franco drew criticism from progressives and many other artists. As such, it is probable that at least some of the common dismissal of DalÃ's later works had more to do with politics than the actual merits of the works themselves. In 1959, André Breton organized an exhibit called, Homage to Surrealism, celebrating the Fortieth Anniversary of Surrealism, which contained works by Salvador DalÃ, Joan Miró, Enrique Tábara, and Eugenio Granell. Breton vehemently fought against the inclusion of DalÃ's Sistine Madonna in the International Surrealism Exhibition in New York the following year.Late in his career, Dalà did not confine himself to painting but experimented with many unusual or novel media and processes: he made bulletist works and was among the first artists to employ holography in an artistic manner. Several of his works incorporate optical illusions. In his later years, young artists like Andy Warhol proclaimed Dalà an important influence on pop art. Dalà also had a keen interest in natural science and mathematics. This is manifested in several of his paintings, notably in the 1950s when he painted his subjects as composed of rhinoceros horns, signifying divine geometry (as the rhinoceros horn grows according to a logarithmic spiral) and chastity (as Dalà linked the rhinoceros to the Virgin Mary). Dalà was also fascinated by DNA and the hypercube; the latter, a 4-dimensional cube, is featured in the painting Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus).DalÃ’s post-World War II period bore the hallmarks of technical virtuosity and an interest in optical illusions, science and religion. Increasingly Catholic, and inspired by the shock of Hiroshima, he labeled this period "Nuclear Mysticism". In paintings such as The Madonna of Port-Lligat (first version) of 1949 and Corpus Hypercubus, 1954, Dalà sought to synthesize Christian iconography with images of material disintegration inspired by nuclear physics. “Nuclear Mysticism†included such notable pieces as La Gare de Perpignan, 1965, and Hallucinogenic Toreador, 1968–1970.
In 1960, Dalà began work on the Dalà Theatre and Museum in his home town of Figueres; it was his largest single project and the main focus of his energy through 1974. He continued to make additions through the mid-1980s. He found time, however, to design the Chupa Chups logo in 1969. Also in 1969, He was responsible for creating the advertising aspect of the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest, and created a large metal sculpture, which stood on the stage at the Teatro Real in Madrid.In the television programme Dirty Dalì: A Private View broadcast on Channel 4 on 3 June 2007, the art critic Brian Sewell described his acquaintance with Salvador Dali in the late 1960s, which included lying down in the fetal position without trousers in the armpit of a figure of Christ and masturbating for Dalà who pretended to take photos while fumbling in his own trousers.In 1982, King Juan Carlos of Spain bestowed on Dalà the title Marquis of Pubol, for which Dalà later paid him back by giving him a drawing (Head of Europa, which would turn out to be DalÃ's final drawing) after the king visited him on his deathbed.Gala died on June 10, 1982. After Gala's death, Dalà lost much of his will to live. He deliberately dehydrated himself—possibly as a suicide attempt, possibly in an attempt to put himself into a state of suspended animation, as he had read that some microorganisms could do. He moved from Figueres to the castle in Púbol which he had bought for Gala and was the site of her death. In 1984, a fire broke out in his bedroom under unclear circumstances—possibly a suicide attempt by DalÃ, possibly simple negligence by his staff. In any case, Dalà was rescued and returned to Figueres where a group of his friends, patrons, and fellow artists saw to it that he was comfortable living in his Theater-Museum for his final years.There have been allegations that his guardians forced Dalà to sign blank canvasses that would later (even after his death) be used and sold as originals. As a result, art dealers tend to be wary of late works attributed to DalÃ. He died of heart failure at Figueres on January 23, 1989 at the age of 84, and he is buried in the crypt of his Teatro Museo in Figueres
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