Year 6 have been learning all about the surrealist artist: Salvador Dali. Salvador Dalí was born in 1904 in Figueres, Spain. It was a city located close to the Pyrenees, which border France and Spain. Salvador Dalí showed great flair for art from an early age and both parents supported him. He was described as ‘precocious and intelligent’ but also had quite a temper, which often got him into trouble, especially with his father who would punish him severely. 

In the late twenties, Dalí met a number of influential artists. He was particularly impressed with Pablo Picasso.

In 1922, Dalí began attending Academia de San Fernando in Madrid. His appearance became very eccentric and he began to be influenced by Cubism. He also met artist Joan Miró, poet Paul Eluard and painter René Magritte. These artists introduced Dalí to Surrealism. The word ‘surrealist’ means ‘beyond reality’. This means that surrealist art is an expression of dreams and the unreal rather than something that is true and rational.

In our art lessons we have been researching facts about Salvador Dali, as well as observing the colours he liked to use in his work. We hope you like looking through our sketchbook pages:

Examples of Salvador Dalí paintings

Here are some of our initial replicas of Dali’s fantastic work:

• The Persistence of Memory (1931).

• Sleep (1937).

• The Elephants (1948).

Homework:

Year 6 were set the challenge this week of replicating another of Dali’s works. Mrs Turner thought that some of the children had excellently captured the surrealism art style. 

Ambla, “Salvador Dali is an artist who has made many paintings inspired by his dreams. He is also very famous because of his moustache that sticks out!”

Tobe, “Did you know that Salvador Dali worked with Walt Disney?”

Fun facts about Salvador Dali:

• As well as being an artist, Dalí worked on many theatre and film productions, including ‘Spellbound’ with Alfred Hitchcock and ‘Destino’ with Walt Disney.
• He designed the Chupa Chups logo!
• He had a prolific career – producing over 1,500 paintings.
• Dali was very interested in and influenced by the work of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.