Salvador DALI

Salvador DALI (1904-1989)

Surrealism
In the summer of 1929, Dalí met René Magritte and Paul Éluard in Cadaqués. On the recommendation of Joan Miró, the artist joined the Surrealist movement. In Paris, he frequented the Surrealist group, which at the time included Hans Arp, André Breton, Paul Éluard, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, and Tristan Tzara… And he fell in love with Helena Diakonova, better known as Gala, the daughter of a Russian lawyer and wife of the poet Paul Éluard.

In 1931, he painted *The Persistence of Memory*, a small painting also known as *Soft Watches*. Fascinated by Albert Einstein’s *General Theory of Relativity*, published in 1920, Salvador Dalí depicts here an impossible quest against finitude. The painting was featured in an exhibition at the Pierre Colle Gallery.

Projects and Exhibitions
During the 1930s, Dalí participated in several exhibitions, notably at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York and at the International Surrealist Exhibition organized by André Breton and Paul Éluard. It was there that he presented his famous *Rainy Taxi*. In 1941, the MoMA organized a retrospective of his work. A few years later, a portrait of Dalí by photographer Man Ray made the cover of *Time* magazine.