His Family

Salvador Dalí Cusí

In front of his father, Dalí felt as if he were William Tell’'s son. That’s why in 1930, he was photographed with a sea urchin plopped on his head: it was his apple. The look on his face through the camera lens was the expression of someone who may die at the hands of the very one who had given them life.

His father, Salvador Dalí Cusí, a professional notary and a highly respected person in Figueres, was a vital figure for him. He both admired and feared his father at the same time, as can be intuited in the portraits he dedicated to him during the early years. Then, as a surrealist and follower of psychoanalysis, the paternal figure became a constant source of inspiration, especially after the family falling out during the 1930s.

Felipa Domènech Ferrés

Felipa Domènech Ferrés was the backbone of the family. Losing her firstborn when he was still a child may have led her to dote on her later children, starting with Salvador Dalí, who always admitted to being a very protected child. The portraits that Dalí devoted to that loving, selfless mother in 1918 and 1920 already display a sad, almost foreboding look.

In 1929, in the painting Parfois je crache par plaisir sur le portrait de ma mère..., the artist wrote “Parfois je crache par plaisir sur le portrait de ma mère” (“Sometimes I spit on the portrait of my mother for the fun of it”) on the canvas. At that time, he was already immersed in the surrealist movement, which aimed to do away with bourgeois institutions such as the family. But to his father, who didn’t like modern fickleness, this was an unacceptable offense to his dead wife, so he disinherited Dalí and kicked him out of the house.

Salvador Dalí Domènech I

On October 12, 1901, Salvador Dalí Domènech was born. The first Salvador. He only lived for 22 months. He died in August of 1903 from viral gastroenteritis or stomach flu. The couple wanted to move on right away and after nine months and ten days they had another child, whom they also called Salvador. The second Salvador. The child grew up with the ghost of the memory of his dead brother and with the feeling, he was usurping a place that did not belong to him.

It was a recurrent theme throughout his artistic career, both in his paintings and in his literature. Around the year 1963, for instance, he painted Retrat de meu germà mort (Portrait of My Dead Brother), which is not based on photos of the first Salvador but on those of an older child. Maybe he wanted to imagine what he would have looked like if he had survived.

Anna Maria Dalí Domènech

Along with his mother, his sister Anna Maria was the most important female figure during Dalí's youth. The best evidence of this is the multiple portraits he dedicated to her, including the famous Figura en una finestra (Girl at a Window, 1925)

The relationship between them fell apart as the painter delved deeper into surrealism and especially when his relationship with Gala began. The situation reached a point of no return in 1949 when she published Salvador Dalí vist per la seva germana (Salvador Dalí as Seen by His Sister, 1949). The artist did not like those memoirs and in fact there are experts that say that Jeune vierge autosodomisée par sa propre chasteté (Young Virgin Self-Sodomized by Her Own Chastity, 1954) is a response to the book and his confrontation with Anna Maria, with whom he hardly ever spoke again.

Gala

Whoever knows the trajectory of Salvador Dalí, knows that Gala changed his life forever. They met in 1929 when she was married to Paul Eluard, whom she left to begin a relationship with the Figueres native. This caused a great upheaval within the Dalí family: she was a separated woman, ten years older than Salvador, she was Russian and had a daughter, Cécile.

Her real name was Elena Ivanovna Diakonova and the fact that she was always in the background made her, for some, "just" the artist's muse. For others, she was a manipulative, wicked person who made Dalí do whatever she wanted. Neither postulate is true. The couple complemented each other perfectly and Gala played a key role in Salvador Dalí’s artistic career when he began to pave his way in Paris.

Maria Anna Ferrés Sadurní

Dali’s artistic obsession came from his mother’s side. His maternal grandmother, Maria Anna Ferrés, came from a family dedicated to the import and sale of tortoiseshell products, which was how she made her living until, old and retired, she went to live in Figueres with her other daughter, Catalina. There, she helped to take care of the children, entertaining them by telling stories and proposing manual work that she mastered skillfully. In fact, in the two portraits that Dalí dedicated to her, he portrays her sewing.

She seemed to immediately sense Salvador's talent. According to Anna Maria Dalí in Salvador Dalí vist per la seva germana (Salvador Dalí as Seen by His Sister), shortly before dying, the grandmother told the doctor attending her: “My grandson will be a great painter. The best Catalan painter.”

Catalina Domènech Ferrés

It can be said that Dalí had a second mother. hortly after Dalí senior married Felipa Domènech, his sister Catalina went to live in the same building on Monturiol Street. She became involved in the upbringing of her nephew and niece, especially after Felipa's death. The relationship was so intimate that in 1922 she ended up marrying her brother-in-law. However, due to his discreet temperament he always remained in the background. So much so that despite the change in status, in Figueres she continued to be known as "La tieta" for the rest of her life.

ike her sister, she was highly skilled with her hands and would make the hats she wore (she had learned the trade of milliner as a young woman in Barcelona). It is not surprising, then, that Dalí portrayed her wearing one of her creations

Teresa Cusí Marcó

Although she did not have much presence in his daily life, as she resided in Barcelona, the character of the painter's paternal grandmother, Teresa Cusí Marcó, helps us to understand his natural impulse toward rebellion.

Born in Roses in 1844, she left her husband for Galo Dalí. The couple moved from l’Empordà to Barcelona and had three children (one of them the artist's father). Initially, they took advantage of the economic boom that the Catalan capital was experiencing, but afterwards they were ruined, and in 1886 Galo, desperate due to debts, committed suicide. The incident became a taboo subject for the family, who never spoke about it. Teresa died in 1912, when Dalí was eight years old.

Llúcia Gispert de Montcanut

Despite not being part of the family, Dali’s nanny Llúcia Gispert de Montcanut was a key figure during the artist’s childhood. Throughout his life, Dalí recalled stories and anecdotes told by this woman, whom both he and his sister held in very high esteem and for whom they had great affection. The portrait that Salvador painted in 1917 gives a hint of the kind-heartedness behind that old lady with bright blue eyes.