Salvador Dali, Surrealist master and the quite possibly the most eccentric gentleman in history, would be celebrating his 112th birthday today. Salvador Dali’s art is famed for its ground-breaking insight into the subconscious, a close relationship with Freudian psychoanalysis and examination into the madness of the human soul. Dali’s surreal exploits didn’t stop at his art; his existence was equally surreal. A penchant for sadomasochism, an obsession with Hitler, a crippling fear of both grasshoppers and castration and a very bizarre encounter with Brian Sewell, the list of Dali’s seriously strange exploits is as endless as his creativity…
Dali believed he was the reincarnation of his dead brother
Dali’s mother gave birth to her first son in 1901, a child that she named Salvador and who died of gastroenteritis at 22 months old. Nine months after the child’s death, the Salvador we know was born, and took his dead brother’s name. Dali was told by his parents at the age of five that he was the reincarnation of his brother, a belief he carried into his adult life.
Dali had an unscrupulous obsession with money
Dali wasn’t really into the whole “poor artist” thing. Dali was famed for his extraordinarily lavish lifestyle – above you can view one artwork, a beating heart encrusted with rubies – a lifestyle benefitted by his fame, star-studded company and his lack of financial scruples. The artist would draw on the back of every cheque he wrote to pay for dinner, knowing that no restaurant would ever cash an original Dali artwork. Dali was bestowed with the derogatory nickname Avida Dollars, by his Surrealist associate André Breton, an anagram of his name which loosely translates as “eager for dollars”.
Dali bought his wife a castle – but needed her written permission to visit
Dali’s relationship with his wife, Gala, resembled as much a maniacal obsession as it did love. The Russian-born former school teacher left Salvador’s poet friend Paul Éluard for the artist, and became Dali's muse until his death. Salvador once asked Gala, whilst standing on the edge of a cliff, what she wanted from him. She answered, “I want you to kill me” – Dali credited this omission as curing him of the fits of hysteria he had been experiencing. He bought her a castle in Púbol, Spain, which he transformed with his own artwork – Salvador, however, was only permitted to visit her with her written permission.
Dali once appeared on What’s My Line
“Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali.” Dali, to say the least, was certainly a confident man – his relentless proclamations of his genius make Kanye West look like a connoisseur of humble pie. Dali was keen to express his polymath qualities during his chaotic appearance on What’s My Line, answering yes to almost every question and professing to be an athlete, writer, a comic strip artist.
Dali had a faintly perverse obsession with Hitler
While the vast majority of the Surrealist group professed far-Left political leanings, Dali kept curiously quiet during his early career, before being kicked out of the group for being a Nazi sympathiser, which he denied. Dali went on to make artwork addressing the Hitler, including “The Enigma of Hitler” (above) and “Hitler Masturbating”, once detailing that he “often dreamed of Hitler as a woman” and that the Nazi dictator “turned [him] on”.
Dali starred in an advert for Alka-Seltzer
Dali’s art may have explored the depths of the human subconscious, but the artist was not averse to indulging in some of the more frivolous aspects of commercial culture. Dali starred in adverts for Alka Selzer, Braniff airways, Vete Rano and Lanvin chocolate – he even designed the logo for lollipop supremos Chupa Chups.
Dali had a very strange relationship with his penis
Dali had a more than complex relationship with his sexuality, one that has incited a melee of rumours. Dali is said to have been in a homosexual relationship with poet Federico García Lorca, but is also rumoured to have used masturbation as his near sole source of sexual gratification. He had a fear of both castration and female genitalia, encapsulated in one of his most disturbingly intimate works “The Great Masturbator”. Art historian and critic Brian Sewell has also claimed that Dali once asked him to lie naked in front of one of his sculptures and masturbate whilst he watched.
As a child, Dali once pushed a "friend" off of a bridge
Dali admitted on several occasions to having sadomasochistic tendencies. As a child he enjoyed throwing himself down the stairs, explaining that “The pain was insignificant, the pleasure was immense”. Shockingly, he once pushed his childhood friend off of a 15-foot bridge – as his friend lay injured, Dali apparently sat calmly eating cherries. Sadomasochism is featured frequently in his work, including Un Chien Andalou, his famed collaboration with Luis Buñuel which featured a woman's eyeball being cut open.
Dali nearly suffocated while giving a lecture in a diving suit
Dali was famed for his gregarious stunts – although one of his more ambitious almost resulted in the artist’s death. Dali decided to deliver his lecture at the 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition dressed in an antique diving suit, representing him delving into the sea of his subconscious. When he began to suffocate inside the soundproof suit, his audience thought it was part of an elaborate performance.
Dali once collaborated with Walt Disney
Dali’s enthusiastic relationship with contemporary pop culture brought to artist to approach Walt Disney to produce a film, inspired by the Disney classic Fantasia. The project, named Destino, was regrettably shelved and never realised in Dali’s lifetime, but finally came to fruition in 2003 when it was picked up by Disney’s nephew, Roy, and turned into a six minute short film.
Dali hosted weekly orgies
The depths of Dali’s sexual ambiguity was arguably matched by his wife’s sexual ambition. Famed even before they met for her extensive list of lover’s Gala encouraged Salvador into an open marriage, which saw the couple host regular orgies. Cher was once invited to his house while an orgy was ongoing, and detailed that she picked up “a beautiful, painted rubber fish. Just fabulous. It has this little remote-control handset, and I’m playing with it, and the tail is going back and forth, and I’m thinking it’s a child’s toy. So I said to Salvador: ‘This is really funny." And he said: 'It’s wonderful when you place it on your clitoris.'"
