Salvador Dali (1904-1989)

​The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Salvador Dali is a commercial. As a little girl I was very impressed when he advertised a brand of chocolate on TV with this declaration: "Je suis fou du Chocolat Lanvin" (I am crazy about Chocolate Lanvin). Advertising about chocolate and about himself, playing with the fact that he had a reputation for being crazy... But as he used to say: "The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad.”

Born in Spain in 1904, he was an eclectic artist: painter, sculptor, designer and showman. Both modern and traditional, making an art of his showmanship and influenced by the artists of the Renaissance. He is one of the best known Surrealist painter in popular culture because of his colorful personality. He wore a very long mustache, a cape and a walking stick in public.

Surrealism is a movement that started in the early 20th century as a reaction against the first world war. It included painters as well as musicians and writers. They put aside rational thinking and logic and emphasized on the unconscious, the psyche and dreams. Dali explored a world revealed previously by the work of Freud and the psychoanalysis.
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​He collaborated with many artists during his life, like film director Alfred Hitchcock in Spellbound (1945) where a dream sequence is represented with his paintings. and fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli in creating one of her most iconic work "the lobster dress".

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