{"id":89554,"date":"2025-07-24T20:45:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T20:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/89554\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T20:45:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T20:45:21","slug":"salvador-dalis-final-interview-revealed-in-graphic-detail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/89554\/","title":{"rendered":"Salvador Dal\u00ed\u2019s final interview, revealed in graphic detail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Salvador Dal\u00ed was sitting on a throne, wearing a red Catalan cap and dressed in white silk, and about to make a literary revelation.<\/p>\n

He had summoned Ian Gibson, his distinguished biographer, to his giant egg-surmounted palace in Figueras, northern Spain, for what would be the artist\u2019s last interview. <\/p>\n

\u201cI reached the end of the red carpet and approached the throne and he was a skeleton, trembling with Parkinson\u2019s, full of tubes,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cHe wanted me to know that [the poet and playwright Federico Garc\u00eda] Lorca had felt an intense physical love for him and that although he would have liked to reciprocate, he was unable to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Black<\/p>\n

Dal\u00ed, right, said Lorca, left, felt \u201can intense physical love for him\u201d<\/p>\n

FINE ART IMAGES\/HERITAGE IMAGES\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

The disclosure in January 1986, three years before Dal\u00ed\u2019s death aged 84, incensed Lorca\u2019s family, who were reluctant to reveal his homosexuality. It also enriched Gibson\u2019s biography, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dal\u00ed, which was published to acclaim a decade later. <\/p>\n

A comic book adaptation of the biography has now been published in Spain to \u201ceducate a younger generation of Spaniards who know nothing about their history\u201d, in the author\u2019s words. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis format is important to inform young Spanish people about an essential figure of their culture,\u201d Gibson, 86, said. \u201cMy 1997 biography is a thousand pages long but with the fast pace of life now it\u2019s very difficult for people to find the time to read and so this comic will help them get closer to Dal\u00ed\u2019s fascinating life more easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Exhibition honours Spain\u2019s \u2018forgotten\u2019 surrealist<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The comic book, titled La Vida Incombustible de Salvador Dal\u00ed, which he produced with the illustrator Quique Palomo, offers a fresh look at an artist who was as much a performer and provocateur as he was a painter. \u201cHis exhibitionism is very interesting and relevant today because everybody\u2019s exhibiting nowadays,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cWe\u2019re living in a totally narcissistic age. Everybody wants to be famous. Dal\u00ed was a forerunner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/p>\n

Dal\u00ed\u2019s relentless quest for attention began early in his life. As a young man, he already imagined the fame that he would later win. \u201cWhen I return to Spain, I\u2019ll be recognised as a genius,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n

\u2022 How Franco\u2019s death left Spanish artists free to celebrate hedonism<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Gibson believes the root of his craving for acclaim was that Dal\u00ed had an older brother, also called Salvador, who died young. \u201cThe older brother became a total obsession for his parents and Salvador too. They gave him the same name, and in his parents\u2019 bedroom, there was a photograph of the dead brother, who was beautiful in a way that Dal\u00ed wasn\u2019t,\u201d Gibson said. <\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/p>\n

A page from the biography, showing Gibson being summoned to Dal\u00ed\u2019s house in Figueras<\/p>\n

The original title, he added, was intended to convey that underlying Dal\u00ed\u2019s exhibitionism was an intense feeling of shame. \u201cHe was very complex. His exhibitionism was a challenge against shyness,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cI came to the conclusion that his major problem as a young man was pathological shyness, a character flaw that almost drove him to suicide.\u201d <\/p>\n

The comic book also dwells on his studies at Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid, an elite college where he met his friends Lorca and the film director Luis Bu\u00f1uel, and where he transitioned from bohemian attire to markedly eccentric elegance.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a360m art collection of \u2018Europe\u2019s Peggy Guggenheim\u2019 to go on sale<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDal\u00ed was terrified that he might be gay, and Lorca obviously was, and the poet fell in love with him,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cThat caused tremendous friction. On Monday they hated and were jealous of each other but they made up on Tuesday morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as graphic scenes showing his amorous relationship with his wife Gala, whose death cast him into a deep depression, the book seeks to explain Dal\u00ed\u2019s high regard for the dictator Francisco Franco. <\/p>\n

\u201cDal\u00ed was in exile and homesick for his beloved Emporda region in Catalonia. He didn\u2019t give a damn for Franco,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cHe pretended he returned to Catholicism and he came back as a sort of court painter. He didn\u2019t give a damn what, as long as he was back to his home territory.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Salvador Dal\u00ed was sitting on a throne, wearing a red Catalan cap and dressed in white silk, and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":89555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[648,1032,1033,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-89554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114910168782556974","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}