The Surreal Years
(1929-1941)

In 1929, two things happened to Salvador Dalí that hastened him down the path to greatness. First, and most far reaching, was his chance meeting with Gala Eluard in 1929 in Cadaqués. She was at that point the wife of the famous French poet, Paul Eluard, but as soon as she and Dalí met, the became inseparable. The other important event was that Dalí decided to formally join the Paris Surrealists in this same year. In January, he met with Luis Bunuel in Figueras to work on a script for the film which would eventually be known as Un Chien andalou [An Andalusian Dog]. He also had his first one man show in Paris at Goeman's Gallery, and was soon on his way to the top. However, there was a price to pay for all this success. Disapproving of his relationship with Gala, Dalí's father threw him out of the house, starting an estrangement that would last almost 30 years before being healed. Additionally, being part of a formal art movement meant producing prodigious amounts of art, and taking place in a variety of events.

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With no income to support them, Gala and Dalí moved into a small shack in a small village called Port Ligat, to the north. There they spent many secluded hours together, as Dalí churned out paintings which could be sold to support them. As he exhibited these works, and became more and more involved with the Surrealist, his paintings began to change rapidly, even from the more abstract works he had completed in the early 1920's. Now Dalí's works more and more embraced the ideas of the Surrealists, but in a uniquely Dalíanian way that was his alone. The ...

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