Top 10 artists facts

Salvador Dali. The brand was founded by the Spaniard Enric Bernat in 1958, who started his business in Catalonia. It is currently owned by the Italian multinational corporation Perfetti Van Melle.

Pablo Picasso. In 1944 Picasso joined the French Communist Party (he lived in France), attended an international peace conference in Poland, and in 1950 received the Stalin Peace Prize from the Soviet government. But party criticism of a portrait of Stalin as insufficiently realistic cooled Picasso’s interest in Soviet politics, though he remained a loyal member of the Communist Party until his death.

Salvador Dali. Dali grew a flamboyant mustache, influenced by 17th-century Spanish master painter Diego Velázquez. The mustache became an iconic trademark of his appearance and have made him something of a cultural icon for the bizarre and surreal.

Yves Klein. In 1960, Klein created and patented the ultramarine color known as International Klein Blue or IKB. He invented the paint with the help of a chemical retailer by suspending pure, dry pigment in crystal-clear synthetic resin and compatible solvents. Unlike traditional binders, the new colorless carrier did not dull the individual particles of pigment, but left them with their original brightness and intensity.

Madonna. Having sold more than 300 million records worldwide, Madonna is noted as the best-selling female recording artist of all time by Guinness World Records.

Richard Wagner. Cosima Wagner (born Francesca Gaetana Cosima Liszt; 1837-1930) was the illegitimate daughter of the Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt and Marie d'Agoult. She became the second wife of the German composer Richard Wagner, and with him founded the Bayreuth Festival as a showcase for his stage works.

Pablo Picasso. Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a realistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas.

Ocelot. Salvador Dalí acquired his pet ocelot Babou in the 1960s, and for a time it was seen to accompany him, on a leash and stone studded collar, almost everywhere he went. The ocelot typically weights 8 to 18 kilograms (18 to 40 lbs).

Switzerland. Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901) was a Swiss symbolist painter. Böcklin exercised an influence on Giorgio de Chirico and on Surrealist painters like Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí. When asked who was his favorite painter, Marcel Duchamp controversially named Arnold Böcklin as having a major influence on his art. Whether Duchamp was serious in this assertion is still debated.

May 2, 1519 in Amboise (France). In 1516, Leonardo entered the service of king Francis I of France, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé near the king's residence at the royal Château d'Amboise. He spent the last three years of his life here. He died on 2 May 1519 and was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in Château d'Amboise in France.