showed considerable art talent and received his first art lesson at the age of ten. Among his teachers was Ramon Pichot, a Spanish impressionist painter. Dali got his first printing press in 1923. He later studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Madrid, but did not complete his final examinations. In 1928 Dali left for Paris, where he became the principal figure of the surrealist movement, and associated there with Andre Breton, Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro. By 1929, Dali established his personal style for which he became famous. Dali married in 1934 to Gala.

Dali had his first one-man show in New York in 1933. After he moved to the U.S.A. permanently in 1940 to evade World War II, he had a series of spectacular exhibitions, and became a favorite of American High Society. After he and his wife returned to Europe in 1948, Dali devided their stay among Lligat, Spain; Paris and New York. At that time, Dali altered his style by integrating into his work ideas from science, religion, history and from the paintings of some of the classical European masters.

Already during his lifetime, Dali had two museums dedicated exclusively to his work, The Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Dali Museum-Theater in Figueres, Spain. Due to palsy, which caused permanent trembling of his hands, Dali was forced to retire in 1980. Following Gala’s death in 1982 and burns suffered in a 1984 fire, he lived in the tower oh his own museum. He died there of heart failure in January 23, 1989.

Dali is considered to be the greatest artist of the surrealist art movement and one of 20^th century’s foremost masters of art.