Salvador Dalí was a famous Spanish surrealist artist born in 1904 in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. He studied art in Madrid and returned to Figueres for further lessons, eventually holding his first exhibition in Barcelona in 1925. In 1929 he met his lifelong partner Gala and fully embraced surrealism, though he was later expelled from the surrealist group. Dalí and Gala fled to America during World War II and returned to Spain in 1948, where he explored mystical and nuclear themes. Gala died in 1982 and Dalí followed in 1989 after several suicide attempts.