This was my first time standing before a Salvador Dalí painting: it was like I’d stumbled into someone else’s dream–unsettling and mesmerising all at once. He painted the spaces between reality and imagination. Clocks dripped over branches, landscapes stretched endlessly, women and their bodies–both seductive and grotesque–painted somewhere between desire and fear. Standing there, one could feel the lines blur, peeling the layers of human emotion.
I am at one of the rare exhibitions of Dalí’s iconic works showcased at the India Habitat Centre in Delhi. From February 7th to 13th, the capital witnessed some of the artist’s most intriguing creations, at an exhibition titled ‘Dali Comes to India’. Although touted as his first exhibition in India, The Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata houses two of Dalí’s colour etchings.
Presented by Bruno Art Group and curated by Christine Argillet, daughter of Pierre Argillet—a longtime collaborator of the legendary artist—the exhibition featured over 200 rare etchings, watercolours, and tapestries from the prestigious Pierre Argillet Collection–an intimate glimpse into the artist’s dreamscapes.
At present, the exhibition is being held at Masarrat Gallery in Greater Kailash 2, until March 16. Lately, India has become a crucial fixture on the international art calendar. The spotlight is shifting, with the country now emerging as a central player in the global art dialogue.
On a Sunday noon, I found myself in a room with nearly 100 other visitors, all eager to catch a glimpse of Dalí’s world. The show featured just over a dozen paintings, drawings, and sculptures—smartly assembled and neatly arranged. If you’re already a true believer, this exhibition presents just enough classic hits to feel like manna from heaven.
The curators wisely focused on Dalí’s most creatively fertile period. A major highlight of the exhibition is the ‘The Hippies’ series, offering a surrealist interpretation of cultural exchanges between the East and West in the 1970s. Some of the sketches were inspired by photographs taken by Pierre Argillet during a trip to India in the 1970s, a time when the hippie movement was at its peak and young guitar-toting Americans flocked to India on spiritual quests.
Dalí may never have visited India, but the country’s magnetic pull on the West—particularly on the counterculture generation—echoes through his surreal landscapes. This intersection of East and West, of surrealism and spirituality, is what keeps his work relevant even today. In The Cosmonaut, The Corridor of Katmandu from this series, Dalí uses golden halos and swirling whirls–capturing the mysticism that permeated that era.
As I moved past a few paintings, human bodies sprouted flowers from their heads, eyeballs danced in a matrix of squiggles and strokes, and dismembered body parts interacted animatedly with the world around them. It felt like playing an art detective, piecing together codes left by an enigmatic genius. With every brushstroke and symbol, Dalí’s meticulous style and evolving vision revealed layers of meaning. As I stared into them for longer, those disconnected shapes started to form new connections and meanings. It’s as if Dalí knew exactly how to nudge the subconscious into seeing beyond what was there.
In Marilyn Monroe (1967), Dalí’s signature surrealist style peels back the glamorous façade, revealing the vulnerability beneath the icon’s allure. One of Salvador Dalí’s intriguing works, Apollinaire – Woman with Snail intertwines sensuality and subconscious symbolism.
But perhaps, Dalí’s Mythologie series—a surreal reinterpretation of Greek myths—truly captivates. Inspired by Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionism, Dalí mastered the art of controlled chaos, pulling ancient narratives into dreamlike explorations of the human psyche. Figures from Greek mythology—Theseus and the Minotaur, Leda and the Swan, Pegasus, and Icarus—drawn with precise classical detail, bridging the ancient and the surreal.
Dreamy and imaginative, “At the age of six,” he wrote in his 1942 autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, “I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. My ambition has been growing steadily ever since,” Dalí once confessed, revelling in his uniqueness and delicate sensitivity. The late 1920s marked a pivotal phase in his artistic evolution. He travelled to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró, who greatly influenced his work. During this period, Dalí began to develop his distinctive surrealist style, characterised by bizarre dreamlike imagery and meticulous draftsmanship.
Dalí found his true calling in the surrealist movement, widely recognised as the brainchild of André Breton. He drew significant inspiration from Sigmund Freud and his theories of psychoanalysis, which explored mental conflicts rooted deep within the psyche. Freud’s emphasis on dreams—as windows into repressed thoughts and desires—resonated deeply with Dalí. This influence is evident in the dream-like quality of his art, where surreal visuals invite free association. The onlooker can take on their own unique meanings.
‘The Great Masturbator’ is considered one of his first major Surrealist works. Dalí’s take on Surrealism was distinct—he used what he termed the ‘paranoiac-critical method’, inducing controlled hallucinations to tap into deeper truths. This technique is evident in his famous work ‘The Persistence of Memory’ (1931), which quickly gained international acclaim and recognition for its melting clocks.
Well, his dreamscapes can continue to swirl in your mind for longer. In Dalí’s universe, nothing is as it seems, and perhaps that’s the greatest invitation of all—to keep looking, keep wondering, and keep dreaming.
If you’re in Delhi, you can still view Salvador Dalí’s paintings at Masarrat Gallery in Greater Kailash 2, from February 15 to March 16.
