The Surreal Years
(1929-1941)
In 1929, two things happened to Salvador Dalí that hastened him down the path to greatness. First, and most far reaching, was his chance meeting with Gala Eluard in 1929 in Cadaqués. She was at that point the wife of the famous French poet, Paul Eluard, but as soon as she and Dalí met, the became inseparable. The other important event was that Dalí decided to formally join the Paris Surrealists in this same year. In January, he met with Luis Bunuel in Figueras to work on a script for the film which would eventually be known as Un Chien Andalou [An Andalusian Dog]. He also had his first one man show in Paris at Goeman's Gallery, and was soon on his way to the top. However, there was a price to pay for all this success. Disapproving of his relationship with Gala, Dalí's father threw him out of the house, starting an estrangement that would last almost 30 years before being healed. Additionally, being part of a formal art movement meant producing prodigious amounts of art, and taking place in a variety of events.
With no income to support them, Gala and Dalí moved into a small shack in a small village called Port Ligat, to the north. There they spent many secluded hours together, as Dalí churned out paintings which could be sold to support them. As he exhibited these works, and became more and more involved with the Surrealist, his paintings began to change rapidly, even from the more abstract works he had completed in the early 1920's. Now Dalí's works more and more embraced the ideas of the Surrealists, but in a uniquely Dalíanian way that was his alone. The rift with his father was to become a subject for many works, and a small 'father and son icon' can be seen in many of his earlier Surrealist paintings.
It was in 1934 that Salvador Dalí was formally expelled from the Surrealist Group of Paris. In a mock 'trial' they convicted him of being contrary to the aims set forth for the group, and summarily removed him from their company. Apparently, Dalí had become too fascinated by Hitler, and his telephone calls from Lord Chamberlain. There are a number of paintings in which Dalí depicts Hitler, some directly, some less so. One of the more enigmatic symbols that Dalí used to represent his fascination with the two world leaders, and their telephone conversations is called Beach Scene with Telephone, which corresponded in time to the short lived Munich Agreement of September 1938.
Dalí once dressed a young woman in clothing, complete with a head full of flowers, to promote a showing of Dalí's works at the National Gallery. Although Surrealism never caught on in England, one particular British subject, Edward James, became an important collector and patron of Salvador Dalí. He was an original member of the Zodiac Group, which had been put together by Gala exclusively for the purpose of subsidizing the artistic couple through rough times by the sale of Dalí's art.
In 1938, Dalí actually got to meet the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, while visiting London. He is involved with a Surrealist Exposition, as part of his ongoing, but informal association with the Surrealist movement. In paintings such as Beach Scene with Telephone Dalí had long predicted the advent of the second World War, though his experiences in the Spanish Civil War certainly must have influenced that vision. In 1940 Dalí and Gala fled from Acheron, France, only weeks before the Nazi invasion, on a transatlantic passage booked and paid for by Picasso. Dalí brought a number of paintings with him when they fled, and created many many more upon his arrival here. It is surmised that most of Dalí's paintings that were distributed throughout Europe were destroyed by the advancing Nazi forces, although a few may have survived and may surface in the future.
Indeed, the fact that Dalí used his Paranoid Critical Method to enter alternate levels of reality, in which his perceptions were markedly different from everyday reality. His Surreal training had served him well, but paintings like Slave Market with Disappearing Bust of Voltaire 1940, showed that he was quickly outgrowing even their influence. He was developing a style totally unique that would become a watershed event in art, that of integrating the surreal with the everyday, so as to offer it to everyone.
The Dalí's were to remain in the United States until 1948, when they returned to postwar Europe. By the time they had returned, Dalí and Gala had pulled off a variety of publicity stunts, and Dalí had become internationally famous. They spent most of their time in America either in New York City, or in a studio in California. It was also during this time, that Dalí professed his desire to become 'classic.' Soon, he would shift his painting style yet again, and in such a way that would make him the undisputed Master that he had always known he'd become.