Few can be shown Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory” without feeling the spark of recognition, even if Dali’s name escapes them. His painting of a desert filled with melting clocks is world famous, hinting toward the idea of time as something fluid rather than the rigid controller of our lives. Dali’s manipulation of an everyday image into a new idea is masterful, and he repeats this technique time and time again to evoke many different feelings. His transformations from the mundane to the fantastical reflected his own abnormal life with his wife Gala.

Salvador Dali did not simply stay in one place. He lived throughout Spain and in parts of both France and North America, attracting an especially large following during his stay in the U.S. Born in 1904 and living until 1989, Dali also experienced many different social and political climates. His work, however, came from his inner inspiration of complicated familial relationships and sexual desires.

Dali’s work has had many different incarnations throughout the span of his life. He is most commonly known as a surrealist painter, joining the movement and paving the way for pop artists in later years. Both his interaction with the surrealists and their subsequent expulsion of him from their group inspired his work, a style that remained surreal in nature regardless of its title.