At the age of six he wanted to be a cook. At seven his role model was Napoleon. Hungry for surreal success, he became an artist.
”Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali,” the Spanish guru of surrealism shamelessly declared.
The unconventional maestro was quoted as saying that there were moments in his life when he thought he was going to “die from an overdose of satisfaction.”
And perhaps he would, should he pop up at the large-scale exhibition due to open at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.
In terms of numbers, the display is expected to feature 90 graphic works, 25 paintings and an array of photographs to be borrowed from the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, which is itself the largest surrealist object in the world.
The exhibition will reflect basically all the periods Dali went through, from early artworks in search of a firm identity to the hallmark style he created and stuck with for the rest of his life, surrealism.
Inspired by his Russian wife Elena Diakonova, known as Gala, Dali’s ground-breaking and mind-blowing experiments with art merged reality and mysticism, illusions and sciences, abstract and traditional art.
Masterpieces from the Dalí Theatre-Museum are to be unveiled in Russia for the first time ever, on September, 3.