Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali i Domenech is considered one of the great Surrealist painters of our time, and he has been ranked as one of the top ten most popular artists of the 20th Century. I believe Dali attained this status for three reasons: because of the time period in which he painted, because he was a great salesman, and the fact that he was able to shock people with his bizarre behaviors. .
Dali was born on May 11, 1904 and had his first drawing lessons at the age of ten. Despite the his parents wishes for him to go to law school, he went on studying art "at the Royal Academy of Art in Madrid. He was expelled twice and never took his final examinations" (Lenin imports). Dali started going around to galleries to display his work. He "received international fame when three of his paintings were shown in the third annual Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh in 1928. In a way this was his prime starting block" (Folkes). "By 1929, Dali had found his own personal style that would further his fame; the world of the unconscious that is recalled during our dreams" (Lenin imports) This was around the time that Dr. Sigmund Freud's theories about thesubconscious were being explored. I feel that this contributed to his popularity because Surrealism was new at the time, and people's interest in the subconscious was gaining altitude. Because of this peak in interest, there was a great market for surreal art.
Dali was an excellent salesman, and he loved gold and money (The Definitive Dali). He was not one to pass up the opportunity to gain that which he loved. He did many commissions for people in surreal environments (The Definitive Dali). "Dali also spent much of his time designing theater sets, interiors for fashionable shops, and jewelry, as well as exhibiting his genius for flamboyant self-promotional stunts in the United States" (Virtual Dali). These stunts included commercials where he promoted chocolate and his own merchandise.
Art in this time was primarily utilitarian. ... Giotto was a painter in this time. ... Peter, which is what our U.S. ... Matisse was one of the fauvists. ... The most famous surrealist painting is Salvador Dali's Persistance of Memory, depicting clocks laid on tree branches as if they were cloths. ...