If you’ve spent every sunny day on the beach and feel the urge for a bit of culture, the Salvador Dalí museums in Figueres, Portlligat and Púbol are the answer. But who was Dalí, and why is his name so deeply tied to Catalunya and the Empordà region?
The Dalinian Triangle
What ties these locations together is what has come to be known as the Dalinian Triangle. If you draw a line between Figueres, Portlligat and Púbol, you mark out a small corner of Catalunya, barely 40km², that holds the key to Dalí’s universe. Within this triangle, you’ll find the museums, landscapes, light, traditions and stories that shaped both the man and his art. A space at once real and mythical, it opens the door to his world and invites you to step inside.
“These three localities recount for us the trajectory of an internationally renowned artist who was nevertheless entirely linked to this territory.” — Salvador Dalí Foundation.
Early Life and Times
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech (to give him his full name) was born in Figueres on 11 May 1904 to Salvador Dalí Cusí and his wife, Felipa Domènech Ferrés. He was given the necronym (the name of a deceased sibling) of his older brother Salvador, who had died nine months previously. The name Salvador was a family favourite. Throughout his life, he felt haunted by the idea of his departed brother, and being named for him probably didn’t help. He also had a sister three years his junior, Anna-Maria, and the family often holidayed in Cadaqués.
He attended a Hispano-French primary school in Figueres, where he learned French, ‘the language that gave him access to the international art world and culture’. At 16, he suffered a devastating loss when his mother died of cancer. Yet he accepted his father’s remarriage to his aunt Caterina, his mother’s sister, whom he was deeply fond of.
Where It All Began
If you want to discover his roots in Figueres, make a stop at Casa Natal Salvador Dalí, the house where he was born. It takes you back to the very beginning of the artist’s life. Here you’ll learn about his family home, teachers, and friends, and step into the setting that shaped his early years in Figueres and Cadaqués. Far more than just a museum, Casa Natal Salvador Dalí combines history with modern technology to give you a unique insight.
Student Life
In 1922, at the age of 18, Dalí moved to Madrid to study at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts) and quickly gained a reputation as an eccentric and a dandy. The following year, he was temporarily suspended for allegedly taking part in a student protest, but in autumn 1924, he returned and was obliged to repeat the year. By 1925, Dalí was already exhibiting in Madrid and held his first solo exhibition in Barcelona that November.
In March 1926, Dalí visited Paris for the first time, where he met Pablo Picasso, who had a strong influence on his early work, although their relationship soured in later years (more on this later). That same year, Dalí was expelled from the Real Academia, this time for good, after declaring that his examiners were not competent enough to evaluate him!
International Man
In the following years, Dalí exhibited his work again in Barcelona and elsewhere, fulfilled his military service in Figueres, travelled once more to Paris, and spent time in Cadaqués. It was there, in the summer of 1929, that he met Elena Ivanovna Diakonova, originally from Kazan in Russia, to whom he gave the affectionate nickname “Gala”. At the time, Gala was married and had a daughter named Cécile, but she separated from her husband and remained involved with Dalí until the end of her life.
Dalí’s relationship with Gala almost cost him his bond with his father, who at one stage threatened to disinherit him and forbade him from using the family holiday home in Cadaqués. So he rented a house in nearby Portlligat instead, which he later bought and gradually enlarged. Although the couple spent much time in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, London and the Côte d’Azur during the 1930s, his lifelong home base was always Portlligat.
Even as he built a new life with Gala in Portlligat, the political storms of Spain and Europe were closing in, and his choices would shape his legacy as much as his art.
Politics
Although Dalí began by declaring himself a communist, anti-church and anti-monarchy, when the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, he refused to take sides publicly throughout the conflict. At the end of the war in 1939, however, he expressed his support for Franco’s fascist regime and was promptly expelled from the Surrealist movement he had been involved with since 1929. Over the years, he met Franco several times and also voiced support for the monarchy.
When the Germans invaded France at the start of WWII, Dalí and Gala were in Bordeaux but fled to Lisbon, from where they sailed to New York. They spent the next decade between New York and California, touring the U.S. extensively. Their eventual return to Franco’s Spain and his open support for the regime provoked outrage among many exiled anti-fascist artists and intellectuals, including Pablo Picasso, who never again acknowledged Dalí’s existence.
He also suffered a family rupture that led to the breakdown of his relationships with his father and sister. When his father died in 1950, he discovered that his father had disinherited him.
Whatever the controversies of his life, his legacy today lives on most vividly in the museums that preserve his art and memory.
The Museums
To understand Salvador Dalí, you have to step into the world he created for himself and us. In Catalunya, three museums stand at the core of his legacy: the Teatre-Museu Dalí in Figueres, the House-Museum Portlligat in Cadaqués, and the Castle of Púbol. Together they make up what is known as the Dalí Triangle, a journey through his world, where art, architecture and everyday life come together.
NjOY! Tip: tickets must be booked online in advance, especially in summer!
Figueres
In 1960, he began work on his Teatre-Museu Dalí in his home town of Figueres. Over the next decade and a half, he focused most of his energy on this project, and even after it opened in 1974, he continued to add to it over the following ten years. Today, this is the most renowned of the artist’s museums and attracts visitors from all over the world.
Púbol
In 1968 and 1969, he purchased and restored a mostly dilapidated castle in the medieval village of Púbol for his wife Gala. The couple agreed that he would have to request permission, often in writing, to come and visit her during the summers when she usually retreated there for weeks or months at a time. The fact that the castle was in poor shape when they bought it meant the couple could carry out the restoration very much according to their own taste.
“I give you a Gothic castle, Gala.”
“I accept on one condition, that you only come to visit me in the castle by invitation.”
“I accept, since I accept in principle all on condition there are conditions. It is the same principle of courtly love.”
Gala died in 1982 and was buried in the castle. He then moved there from Portlligat and was granted the title Marqués de Dalí de Púbol by King Juan Carlos. He lived at the castle until a fire there in 1984, in which he received severe burns, which caused him to move to Figueres.
He took up residence right next to his Teatre-Museu Dalí in the Torre Gorgot, a 17th-century tower that had been part of the old city walls. He renamed the tower Torre Galatea in memory of his beloved departed, and during his last few years, he left his own mark on it. On 23 January 1989, at the age of 84, he died of heart failure here and was buried in the tower. In 1996, the castle in Púbol opened to the public as the Castell Gala Dalí.
Portlligat
Although he moved frequently throughout his life, the fisherman’s shack that he renovated and expanded over the years in Portlligat, just outside Cadaqués, remained his only fixed address, having been purchased by him in the early 1930s. The Casa-Museu Salvador Dalí, as it is known today, is an amalgamation of six former fishing huts that the artist bought at different stages and converted into the building we see today. The beautiful natural setting, together with the picturesque town of Cadaqués nearby, makes it a perfect weekend break.
And the Art?
You’ve probably noticed we haven’t gone into detail about his artwork. That’s because entire books have been written about him, and honestly, trying to sum it up here would be a bit of a hopeless task.
“We suggest you see for yourself by visiting some or all of the museums. With all three museums in the triangle right here on La Costa Brava, skipping them would be a real shame.”
Love him or loathe him, there’s no denying Dalí was one fascinating character!
