Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis of Dalí de Púbol (11 May 1904 – 23 January 1989), known professionally as Salvador Dalí (/ˈdɑːli, dɑːˈli/[1][2] Catalan: [səɫβəˈðo ðəˈɫi]; Spanish: [salβaˈðoɾ ðaˈli]), was a prominent Spanish surrealist artist born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain.
Dalí 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.[3][4] His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931. Dalí’s expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.
Dalí attributed his “love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes”[5]to an “Arab lineage”, claiming that his ancestors were descended from the Moors.
Dalí 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 critics.[6][7]