Salvador Dalí (11 May 1904 – 23 January 1989), was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work. Dalí’s influence spans various facets of contemporary culture, having impacted fields such as art, popular culture, fashion, film, animation, advertising, photography and literature.

Born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, Dalí received his formal education in fine arts in Madrid. Influenced by Impressionism and the Renaissance masters from a young age he became increasingly attracted to Cubism and avant-garde movements. He moved closer to Surrealism in the late 1920s and joined the Surrealist group in 1929, soon becoming one of its leading exponents.

He was an icon of Surrealism, the 20th-century avant-garde movement that sought to release unconscious creative potential through art that featured dreamlike imagery. Dalí’s fantastical prints, paintings, sculptures, films, and writing helped cement the movement’s identity. Working off psychoanalytic ideas, Dalí rendered fantastical creatures and landscapes that could unsettle and awe.

Dalí lived in France throughout the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) before leaving for the United States in 1940 where he achieved commercial success. He returned to Spain in 1948 where he announced his return to the Catholic faith and developed his “nuclear mysticism” style, based on his interest in classicism, mysticism, and recent scientific developments.

Dalí’s artistic repertoire included painting, graphic arts, film, sculpture, design and photography, at times in collaboration with other artists. He also wrote fiction, poetry, autobiography, essays and criticism. Major themes in his work include dreams, the subconscious, sexuality, religion, science and his closest personal relationships. To the dismay of those who held his work in high regard, and to the irritation of his critics, his eccentric and ostentatious public behavior often drew more attention than his artwork. His public support for the Francoist regime, has also been controversial. His life and work were an important influence on other Surrealists, pop art and contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.

The Catalan Master Salvador Dalí is considered among the great graphic Masters of his century thanks to his unique interpretation of reality.

Dalí exhibited widely in his lifetime, and his works belong in the collections of institutions including the Tate, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others. His work has fetched multimillions of dollars on the secondary market.

There are two major museums devoted to Salvador Dalí’s work: the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Spain, and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.

The horse theme was frequently used by Dalí throughout his career. The horse is seen as a symbol of beauty and elegance as well as a symbol for strength and rawness.

The present digital exhibition includes 19 hand signed and numbered lithographs of Dali’s portfolio entitled “The Dalinean Horses”.

The series present different horses of mythological characters, heroes of folklore and literature. We can recognize the famous Pegasus, the Trojan horse, Rossinante of Don Quichotte or Bucephalus of Alexander the Great, Neptune, The Christian Horse, Lady Godiva, The Centaur of Crete, Victim of the Bullfight, The Horse of Caligula, The Horse of Spring, The Chimera.