Salvador Dalí

SALVADOR DALÍ I DOMÈNECH (Figueras, Girona, 1904–1989).
“Reuben,” from the series “Tribes of Israel,” 1985.
Tapestry.
Signed.
Measurements: 179 x 124 cm.

Tapestry dedicated to Reuben, son of Jacob and Leah and founder of one of the tribes of Israel, from the “Tribes of Israel” series, designed by Salvador Dalí.

During his early years, Dalí discovered contemporary painting during a family visit to Cadaqués, where he met the family of Ramón Pichot, an artist who traveled regularly to Paris. Following Pichot’s advice, Dalí began studying painting with Juan Núñez. In 1922, Dalí stayed at the famous Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid to begin his studies in Fine Arts at the San Fernando Academy. However, before his final exams in 1926, he was expelled for claiming that no one at the academy was qualified to examine him. That same year, Dalí traveled to Paris for the first time. There he met Picasso and established certain formal characteristics that would become distinctive features of his entire body of work from that point on. His artistic language absorbed influences from many artistic styles, ranging from classical academicism to the most groundbreaking avant-garde movements. At that time, the painter grew a striking mustache modeled after Velázquez’s, which would become his personal trademark for the rest of his life. In 1929, Dalí collaborated with Luis Buñuel on the film *Un perro andaluz*, which featured scenes drawn from the surrealist imagination. In August of that same year, he met his muse and future wife, Gala. During this period, Dalí held regular exhibitions in both Barcelona and Paris and joined the Surrealist group based in the Montparnasse neighborhood of Paris. His work had an enormous influence on the direction of Surrealism over the next two years, and he was hailed as the creator of the paranoid-critical method, which was said to help access the subconscious by unleashing creative artistic energies. In 1931, Dalí painted one of his most famous works, “The Persistence of Memory,” in which, according to some theories, he illustrated his rejection of time as a rigid or deterministic entity. The painter arrived in America in 1934, thanks to the art dealer Julian Levy. Following his first solo exhibition in New York, his international reputation was definitively established, and from then on he would exhibit his work and give lectures all over the world. That same year, he was subjected to a “Surrealist trial” that resulted in his expulsion from the movement, because the painter believed that Surrealism could exist in an apolitical context and refused to align himself with the ideas of André Breton. Dalí responded to this with his famous retort, “I am Surrealism.” Most of his body of work is housed at the Dalí Theater-Museum in Figueras, followed by the collection at the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg (Florida), the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Salvador Dalí Gallery in Pacific Palisades (California), the Espace Dalí in Montmartre (Paris), and the Dalí Universe in London.