@eduardmsmr
Happy Surrealist Saturday beautiful souls!!
As the holiday season is here and the Christmas spirit is still lingering around us, I wanted today’s exploration to revolve around someone who actually tried to bring Surrealism into Christmas itself. And that person is none other than perhaps the most famous name in Surrealism: Salvador DalĂ
He was born on May 11, 1904, in Figueres, Spain, and was named after his older brother Salvador, who had died nine months before his birth. His parents believed Dalà was his brother’s reincarnation. Maybe this eerie beginning shaped his entire sense of self , his obsession with identity, with being seen, and with proving that he existed as himself, not as an echo of someone else
By the age of 13, his Impressionist paintings were already receiving formal acclaim. By 14, his work was being published and discussed. The young prodigy absorbed everything from Impressionism, to Pointillism, to Cubism, and to Futurism as if he were preparing to synthesize all of art history into something entirely his own
The pivotal transformation came in the late 1920s, when two discoveries shaped his mature style: his encounter with the writings of Sigmund Freud (Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis), particularly on the erotic significance of subconscious imagery, and his affiliation with the Paris Surrealists. In 1929, Joan Miró (Spanish painter and sculptor, fellow Surrealist) introduced Dalà to André Breton (French writer and poet, founder of Surrealism), and Dalà officially joined the movement
What truly set Dalà apart was his revolutionary “paranoiac-critical method”. While other Surrealists practiced automatism through spontaneous, unconscious creation, Dalà deliberately entered states of controlled hallucination to access deeper truths. He would then produce what he called “hand-painted dream photographs” after emerging from these delusional states, wildly disconnected images rendered with obsessive precision, often heightened by optical illusion. His technical virtuosity was breathtaking
His most famous work, The Persistence of Memory (1931), with its melting clocks draped over a barren Catalonian landscape, became an instant worldwide sensation and remains one of the most recognizable images in art history
In 1929, DalĂ met Gala Éluard, the wife of Surrealist poet Paul Éluard. Gala, who was still married to Éluard and involved in a long affair with Max Ernst (German Surrealist painter), left both men and almost immediately became the center of DalĂ’s world. She became his wife, muse, model, and business manager. DalĂ once said:
“I would polish Gala to make her shine, make her the happiest possible, caring for her more than myself, because without her, it would all end.”
With Luis Buñuel (Spanish filmmaker), Dalà created the groundbreaking Surrealist films Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L’Âge d’Or (1930), featuring shocking imagery like the infamous razor slicing through an eye. In 1938, Dalà finally met Sigmund Freud in London, bringing with him his painting The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. The 82-year-old psychoanalyst reportedly whispered to others in the room: “That boy looks like a fanatic”
But DalĂ’s relationship with the Surrealist movement became increasingly strained. In 1939, AndrĂ© Breton accused him of betraying Surrealist principles after DalĂ designed a shop window for Bonwit Teller, a luxury department store in New York. In 1943, Breton put DalĂ on “trial” for what he called “the glorification of Hitlerian fascism” and formally expelled him from the movement. The Surrealists, many of whom were communists, were provoked by DalĂ’s controversial statements, his fascination with fame, and his refusal to subordinate art to ideology
Breton even gave him the anagrammatic nickname “Avida Dollars” (meaning “avid for dollars”). Despite, or perhaps because of, his expulsion, Dalà famously declared: “I myself am Surrealism.”
And the funny thing is, he wasn’t entirely wrong
Even Breton acknowledged that Dalà had “endowed Surrealism with an instrument of primary importance, in particular the paranoiac-critical method,” capable of being applied not only to painting, but to poetry, cinema, fashion, sculpture, and surrealist objects. By rendering his inner world with classical mastery, Dalà opened new possibilities for artists seeking to inject the personal, the emotional, and the mysterious into their work
His influence rippled far beyond Surrealism, from Abstract Expressionism to Photorealism. Artists like Chuck Close and Richard Estes admired his trompe-l’œil precision. Contemporary figures such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst cite him as an influence. Filmmaker David Lynch has repeatedly acknowledged DalĂ’s impact on his dreamlike cinema, and films like Inception clearly echo DalĂ’s explorations of dreams and fractured realities
DalĂ’s life was filled with unforgettable moments. In 1936, he arrived at a Surrealist exhibition in London wearing a deep-sea diving suit, claiming it helped him access his creative mind, until he nearly suffocated. In 1955, he arrived at a lecture in Paris in a Rolls-Royce filled with cauliflower. He famously said: “The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.” And he wrote:
“Every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador DalĂ, and I ask myself, wonderstruck, what prodigious thing this Salvador DalĂ is going to accomplish today.”
On January 23, 1989, DalĂ died of heart failure while listening to his favorite record, Tristan und Isolde. He is buried beneath the museum he built in Figueres, just a few blocks from where he was born
Before ending, I want to share something special for this Christmas season, perhaps the most surreal attempt ever made to merge Surrealism with Christmas: DalĂ’s holiday cards
In 1948, Hallmark released its first set of Dalà Christmas cards. A recent convert to Catholicism, Dalà created devotional images of the Madonna and Child, the Three Wise Men, and angels. But his headless angel, glowing but faceless baby Jesus, and snarling camels were far too strange for mainstream Christmas shoppers. The cards didn’t sell
Undeterred, Hallmark tried again in 1959. Dalà demanded $15,000 in cash upfront for ten designs (that’s over $120,000 today). Even better, he reportedly dashed off half the designs in his New York hotel bathroom within an hour of signing the contract
The designs featured a recurring butterfly motif, which DalĂ described as a symbol of the soul. One of the most striking was The Butterfly Christmas Tree. DalĂ explained it as a timeless Spanish landscape representing eternity, with two figures beneath the tree, his mother and himself as a child, bound by spiritual beauty and love
Only two designs, The Nativity and Madonna and Child, were printed for Christmas 1960. The reaction was disastrous. The surreal, shadowy figures sparked public outcry, and the cards were quickly pulled from stores
Dalà even attempted to design a Santa Claus, but when he showed it to Hallmark founder Joyce Clyde Hall, it was politely rejected. Hall purchased the painting for the company’s collection, where it then sat hidden in a closet for years
From 1959 to 1976, DalĂ created 19 greeting cards for Hoechst (a German pharmaceutical company), which were sent annually to doctors and pharmacists throughout Spain, where they were far better received by a more sophisticated audience
I love this story because it shows DalĂ refusing to compromise his vision, even in something as commercially driven as a Christmas card. While others painted cozy fireplaces and cheerful Santas, DalĂ painted butterflies as souls, headless angels, and questioned what sacred imagery could even be
His Christmas cards failed commercially, but they succeeded as art. They are strange, beautiful artifacts, proof of what happens when you refuse to make the sacred safe, when you insist on bringing your whole, strange self into even the most conventional traditions
Thank you for reading!🌹
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