Monday Morning Quote – Salvador Dali on Intolerable Ugliness

Today’s Monday Morning Quote is from one of the most famous Surrealist artists of all time, Salvador Dali. He was known as much for his paintings as for his eccentric and flamboyant personality (the mustache merely being a supporting feature).

I seated ugliness on my knee, and almost immediately grew tired of it. - Salvador Dali Legendary artist and mustache groomer

Born on May 11, 1904 in a town called Figueres in the region of Catalonia, Spain, Dali’s talent for the arts was recognized early on. He received his first art lesson at the age of ten, and went on to attend the Special Painting, Sculpture and Engraving School (Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando) at the Royal Academy of Art in Madrid. There he befriended a number of students who would continue on to become renowned artists themselves, including Luis Bunuel, Federico Garcia Lorca, and Pepin Bello. Dali never finished his studies there, though, having been expelled for expressing his superiority over the professors, claiming he was more qualified than they were.

After his expulsion in 1926, Dali traveled to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro for the first time. His first couple of independent exhibitions also took place around this time, portraying clear influences of surrealism. In 1929, he returned to Paris once again, and through Miro, met a group of artists who were known as the Surrealists, led by artist Andre Breton. Dali would soon become immersed in surrealism himself, finding his true identity through this art form.

In 1931, Dali exhibited The Persistence of Memory, which would become his most famous piece, and quite arguably, the most well-known Surrealist artwork of all time.

Dali’s death in 1989 did not halt the enthusiasm of his fans and supporters. In 2009, Villa Dali in the Netherlands was completed, a private home built in honor of Dali’s talent and inspired by his past masterpieces. Whether Dali himself would declare it ugly or not is beyond us.

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