Painter Salvador Dali was born on May 11, 1904, in Figueres, Spain. He died on January 23, 1989. His talent was recognized early in his childhood by the painter Ramon Pichot. He enrolled in the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in 1922, but skipped classes and conducted independent research at the Prado Museum. He eventually clashed with his professors and was expelled. In 1925, he held his first solo exhibition in Madrid. He then traveled to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso and others, and officially joined the Surrealist group in 1929. That same year, he met Gala, the wife of his friend Paul Éluard, and they married in 1934. She subsequently became his muse and appeared in many of his works. In the early 1930s, he established a style of painting that depicted the subconscious, including unconscious dreams, obsessions, and desires. His representative works include "The Persistence of Memory (Soft Clock)" and "Soft Structure with Boiled Kidney Beans (Premonition of Civil War)." He also attracted media attention for his eccentric behavior, such as appearing at lectures in a diving suit and riding an elephant to the Arc de Triomphe. He emigrated to the United States during World War II but returned to the United States in 1948. After the war, he converted to Catholicism and produced a series of religious paintings depicting Gala as the Virgin Mary. Following Gala's death in 1982, he fell into a deep depression and ceased painting in May 1983. He died of heart failure in 1989 at the age of 85. In 2004, the 100th anniversary of Dalí's birth, exhibitions were held around the world. He was close friends with fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, and they even designed fabrics, clothing, and hats together. Additionally, the theme of Jean Paul Gaultier's 2003 Spring/Summer women's collection is "A Little Dalí with Calder," inspired by Dalí and the contemporary sculptor Alexander Calder.