A surreal photo shoot of Salvador Dalì in his seaside villa, 1955

In 1955, photographer Charles Hewitt visited Salvador Dalí and his wife (and muse) Gala at their home to shoot photos for a British editorial magazine called Picture Post.

The famous artist posed showing her true personality and did not miss the opportunity to surprise her audience. Hewitt titled the photoshoot simply "A Day with Salvador Dalí".

In 1930, a few months after his father had thrown him out of the house, unable to tolerate his strange personality, Salvador Dalí purchased a former fisherman's cottage.

The property was paid for with some of the 20,000 francs that the Viscount of Noailles had given him as an advance for a painting that later became The Old Age of William Tell.

In his memoirs, he writes about the difficulties of finding a new home and describes the new home as being like a real organic structure. Every new heartbeat in our lives had its own new cell, its own room. (...) I wanted it all to be nice and small – the smaller the more womb-like.

Over the next forty years, Dalí purchased neighboring cabins, gradually expanding the property into a sort of labyrinth of winding corridors and passageways, filled with artworks and strange installations that reflected his unique passions.

Speaking about his bohemian home, Dalí once said: “Portugal is a place of production, the ideal place for my work. Everything is suitable for making it: time moves more slowly and each hour has its own proper dimension. “It has geological peace: it is a unique planetary affair.”

Overall, Dalí lived and worked in this house from 1930 until Gala's death in 1982. The house has since become a museum and everything has been kept as it was when the couple lived there, including the phallic-shaped swimming pool and the palaestra. Sempervivum ornamentation, Gala's favorite flower.

Dalí fell in love with Elena Dmitrievna Dyakonova, the Russian wife of fellow Surrealist artist Paul Éluard. Despite the forbidden love affair, Elena left her husband for Dalí and they eventually married in 1958. Dalí's wife, whom his beloved husband called Gala, would be his primary inspiration and muse for his art.

According to most accounts, Gala had a high sexual desire and had several extramarital affairs throughout her life, which Dalí encouraged because her main sexual activity involved voyeurism. Dalí said that his wife Gala was the only person with whom he had complete sexual intercourse.

Salvador Dali's mannerisms, personality and style were as dazzling and unconventional as the visually stunning paintings he created.

This Surrealist artist attracted attention for his eccentricities and soon became as recognized for his eccentric behavior, strange style, and long, cartoon-like mustache as for his artwork.