Pour Leon Amiel

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dal� i Domnech, 1st Marqu_s de Dali de Pubol (May 11, 1904 January 23, 1989), known as Salvador Dali, was a prominent Spanish surrealist painter born in Figueres, Spain. Dali was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. Dali's expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media. Dali attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes] to a self-styled "Arab lineage", claiming that his ancestors were descended from the Moors. Dali was highly imaginative, and also enjoyed indulging in unusual and grandiose behavior. His eccentric manner and attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his artwork, to the dismay of those who held his work in high esteem, and to the irritation of his critic