Salvador Dalí was one of the greatest Spanish painters of all time, and one of the most important figures in the history of the modern art movement. Both Dalí's extraordinary talent and odd personality helped him to rise above the rest of the twentieth century surrealists.

At the age of ten, Dalí was already learning to paint under prestigious teachers in renowned art schools. Much of Dalí's work and life was affected by his personality which was regarded as paranoid on one hand, but arrogant and greedy on the other. This was clearly evident upon his second expulsion from the Royal Academy of Art in Madrid, caused by his own assertion that he held greater knowledge of his subject than those who taught him. As a result, he never took his final examinations, yet his achievements show that this was hardly a hindrance to his career in art.

Amongst Dalí's most famous friends were Pablo Picasso and Sigmund Freud. In the early stages of his career he was greatly inspired by the theories of Freud on the subconscious and the meaning of dreams. Indeed much of the surrealist movement can be paralleled with the work of Freud at that time. The foundation of the surrealist movement was based upon the explanation and interpretation of dreams and the hidden unconscious desires. To bring up images from his subconscious mind, Dalí began to induce hallucinatory states upon himself by a process he described as 'paranoiac critical'. Once Dalí perfected this method, his painting style matured very quickly and he began to produce the paintings that made him the world's best known surrealist artist. In 1929 Dalí joined the surrealist movement which consisted of a group of writers and artists led by André Breton. Through this group he met famous poet Paul Eluard and his wife Gala; the woman with whom Dali eventually had an affair and later married. Arguably Dalí's greatest inspiration and influence came from Gala. She became not only his life partner but also his muse, the focus of much of his work, and his business manager. It has also been said that Gala provided Dalí with stability, which due to his eccentric personality; he was in much need of.

He soon became one of the leading figures of the Surrealist Movement. His painting, Persistence of Memory, 1931, with its iconic melting watches, is still one of the best known surrealist works to date. During this time Dalí began to explore the medium of sculpture creating his famous Lobster Telephone in 1936, which featured a lobster as a receiver. He eventually collaborated with jewellery and clothing designers, including Elsa Schiaparelli and Coco Chanel.

By the mid-1930s, Dalí's relationship with the Surrealists and Breton in particular became strained. In part, this had to do with Breton's idea that Surrealism should align itself with the Marxist revolution, but more distressing to the Surrealists was Dalí's fascination with power, specifically his unabashed early admiration for Adolf Hitler. His unwillingness to choose sides in the Spanish Civil War alienated him even more from his former friends. Dismayed by Dalí's political fence-sitting and embrace of brazen consumption, the Surrealists formally dropped him in 1938. He did, however, exhibit works in international surrealist exhibitions throughout the decade.

Dalí and Gala escaped from Europe to America during World War II, spending 1940-1948 in New York. In 1941 the Museum of Modern Art gave him his first major retrospective exhibition. This was followed in 1942 by the publication of Dalí's autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí. During his time in America Dalí moved into a new style which eventually became known as his 'classic' period, demonstrating a preoccupation with science and religion.

After numerous successful years in America Dalí opened his own museum (Teatro Museo Dalí) in 1974 in his home town of Figueres, Spain. This was followed by retrospectives in Paris and London at the end of the decade.

Dalí's beloved wife Gala died in 1982 which made him severely depressed and after being burned in a fire in his home in Pubol in 1984 his health began to deteriorate even further. Much of his life at this point was spent in seclusion, first in Pubol and later in the Torre Galatea, a castle in Figueres adjacent to the Teatro Museo. Dalí was nursed twenty-four hours a day here until his death on 23rd January 1989 from heart failure. He left his hefty estate to the Catalan government, the Spanish state, and the Dalí Museum. Dalí was laid to rest in a crypt he had specially built in the basement of the Teatro Museo and his remains, entombed under a glass dome, were embalmed to last 300 years.

Dalí expressed surrealism in everything he said and did. He was not just unconventional and dramatic; he was fantastic, shocking and outrageous! He was an artist who loved to stir up controversy and instigate scandal and upheaval. Like Picasso, Matisse, Miro and Chagall, his place at the pinnacle of modern art history is assured.

Dalí's art drew from his everyday life and extracted seemingly arbitrary things such as infinite desert plains, marble statues, bicycles or telephones and used them as icons, where through their isolation they became symbols for deeper emotional themes. Dalí explored his own fears and fantasies through these main symbolic images captured on canvas.

Melting Watches
The famous melting watches represent the omnipresence of time, and identify its mastery over human beings. The inspiration for this concept came from a dream of runny Camembert one hot August afternoon. These symbols represent a metaphysical image of time devouring itself and everything else.

Crutches
The crutch is one of Dalí's most important images and features in many of his works. It is first and foremost a symbol of reality and an anchor in the ground of the real world, providing spiritual and physical support for inadequacy in life. The crutch is also the symbol of tradition, upholding essential human values.

Drawers
The drawers arise from their Freudian explanation as a representation of the concealed sexuality of women. Dalí portrays many of the drawers to be slightly ajar, indicating that their secrets are known and no longer to be feared.

Elephants
Dalí's elephants are usually depicted with long, multijointed, almost invisible legs of desire, and carrying objects on their backs, which are also full of symbolism. These elephants represent the future and are also a symbol of strength. They are often shown carrying obelisks, which are symbols of power and domination, and not without phallic overtones. The weight supported by the animals spindly legs shows weightlessness, only made more significant by the burden on their backs.

Eggs
The egg is another favourite Dalínian motif, given the duality of its hard exterior and soft interior. Dalí links the egg to pre-natal images and the intra-uterine universe, and thus it is a symbol of both hope and love.

Snails
The snail occupies an important place in the Dalínian universe as it is intimately linked to a significant event in Dalí's life - his meeting with Sigmund Freud. As Dalí believed that nothing occurred to him simply by accident, he was captivated when he saw a snail on a bicycle outside Freud's house. He connected the snail with a human head, more particularly Freud's head. As with the egg and lobster, the hard shells and soft interiors of snails also fascinated Dalí, and their geometry of their curves enchanted him.

Ants
When Dalí was five years old, he saw an insect that had been eaten by ants and of which nothing remained except the shell. The swarming ants in Dalí's pictures and sculptures are references to death and decay, and are reminders of human mortality and impermanence. They are also said to represent overwhelming sexual desire.

Grasshoppers
Dalí had an irrational fear of grasshoppers, stemming from his childhood torment by other children, who often threw grasshoppers and other insects at him. When they appear in Dalí's work, grasshoppers are used as a symbol of destruction, waste and fear. Dalí represents them with a fearful nature, as large and intimidating in comparison to the other figures, and they are often shown in the act of eating the main subject of the work.