The son of notary Salvador Dalí i Cusí, with whom he had a difficult relationship that influenced his later career, he himself attributed his singular personality to the existence of a brother who had died three years before his birth and to whom his parents had given the same name. He studied in Figueres and at the School of Fine Arts in Madrid, from which he was expelled twice. At the Residencia de Estudiantes, he joined the core of the future Generation of ’27 and came into contact with Futurism, maintaining a close relationship with Buñuel, García Lorca, and Pepín Bello.

From the mid-1920s, he exhibited in Barcelona and began working in set design. His pictorial work, writings, and lectures provoked strong controversy, especially following the Yellow Manifesto (1928). In 1930, he definitively adopted Surrealism, based on the paranoiac-critical method. Based in Paris, he became one of the central figures of pictorial Surrealism and also applied it to set design. He married Gala (1934), who was his muse and a key figure in his artistic and public career.

Between 1940 and 1948, he lived mainly in New York, where he consolidated his international profile through exhibitions, writings, and an intense media presence. Distanced from Surrealist orthodoxy and having declared his support for Francoism since 1939, he was expelled from the group by André Breton. He alternated between the United States and stays in Portlligat, a recurring motif in his work.

Following his return to Spain in 1948, he turned toward mysticism and the Spanish pictorial and literary tradition, adopting public positions in favor of the Franco regime, which allowed him to maintain officially recognized artistic activity. In his final stage, he developed a very diverse range of activities: publications, set design, cinema, illustration, engraving, jewelry, sculpture, design, and international exhibitions. He designed the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, inaugurated in 1974. He received several honors, including the Gold Medal of the Generalitat and the title of Marquis of Púbol (1982). After Gala’s death, he lived in seclusion. The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation was established in 1984, and museums dedicated to his work were subsequently opened in Berlin and Saint Petersburg (Florida).