Salvador Dali
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech was born on 11th May 1904 in Figueres in the north of Spain. In 1922 Dali moved to Madrid to study at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. He became part of a group of intellectuals who wrote poems, essays and stories as well as painting. His early works were largely paintings. In 1929 Dali met the woman who would become his inspiration, muse and wife. Elena Diakonova was ten years his senior and already married to surrealist poet Paul Éluard. She left him and their daughter to spend the rest of her life with Dali. That same year Dali formally joined the Surrealist group. In 1935 he began working with the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli who introduced him to jewelry design. In 1941 he started a joint project with Fulco di Verdura to create a set of five jewels which combined miniature paintings by Dali in settings by Verdura. These pieces debuted at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. From there Dali went on to design jewelry. He partnered with the workshop Alemany & Ertman in New York who brought his visions to life. Dali continued to create jewels until the end of the 1970s.
