Readings.com.au: Salvador Dalí

Dalí's Mustache

With 101 Life magazine covers to his credit, Philippe Halsman (1906-1979) was one of the leading portrait photographers of his time. In addition to his distinguished career in photojournalism, Halsman was one of the great pioneers of experimental photography, motivated by a profound desire to push this youngest of art forms toward new frontiers by using innovative and unorthodox photographic techniques.

One of Halsman's favorite subjects was Salvarod Dalí, the glittering and controversial painter and theorist with whom the photographer shared a unique friendship and extraordinary professional collaboration that spanned over thirty years. Whenever Dalí imagined a photograph so strange that its production seemed impossible, Halsman tried to find the solution, and invariably succeeded.

As Halsman explains in his postface, Dalí's Mustache is the fruit of this marriage of the minds. The jointly conceived and seemingly nonsensical questions and answers reveal the gleeful humor and assumed cynicism for which Dali is famous, while the marvelous and inspired images of Dali's mustache brilliantly display Halsman's consummate skill and extraordinary inventiveness as a photographer.

This combination of wit, absurdity, and the offhandedly profound is irresistible and has contributed to the enduring fascination inspired by this unique photographic interview, which has become a cult classic and valuable collector's item since its original publication in 1954. The present volume faithfully reproduces the first edition and will introduce a new generation to the irreverent humor and imaginative genius of two great artists.

Dalí And I: The Surreal Story

An extraordinary memoir of fortune, fraud and the master of modern art.

Art dealer Stan Lauryssens made millions in modern art, but he only sold one name: Salvador Dali. The surrealist painter’s work was a hot commodity for the newly rich, investors and businessmen looking to launder black-market cash. Stan didn’t mind looking the other way; he just hoped the buyers would do the same. The artworks he sold came from some very shady sources. And he soon discovered that the shadiest source of them all was Salvador Dali himself. The more successful Stan became, the closer he got to Dali’s inner circle, until he found himself living next door to the ageing artist. There, while Stan hid from Interpol detectives, he learned more about Dali’s secret history, the studio of artists who produced his work, and the money-making machine that kept Dali’s extravagant lifestyle afloat long after his creativity began to flounder. Dali & I offers a behind-the-scenes view of the commerce and conspiracy that can go hand-in-hand in the art world, written by a man who has been to the top only to discover it was no different than the bottom.

Dalí (Taschen 25th Anniversary Edition)

Picasso called Dalí 'an outboard motor that's always running'. Dalí thought himself a genius with a right to indulge in whatever lunacy popped into his head.

Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dalí (1904 - 1989) was one of the century's greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics - and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the insights of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis to the art of painting, approaching the subconscious with extraordinary sensitivity and imagination.

This lively monograph presents the infamous Surrealist in full color and in his own words. His provocative imagery is all here, from the soft watches to the notorious burning giraffe. A friend of the artist for over thirty years, privy to the reality behind Dalí's public image, author Robert Descharnes is uniquely qualified to analyze Dalí - both the man and the myth.

About the authors:
Robert Descharnes, a photographer and writer, has published studies of major artists, among them Antoni Gaudí and Auguste Rodin. Since 1950, he has been documenting and cataloguing Dalí’s paintings and writings, and is now considered the leading expert on the artist.

Gilles Néret (1933-2005) was an art historian, journalist, writer and curator. He founded the SEIBU museum and the Wildenstein gallery in Tokyo, directed art reviews, and received the Elie Faure Prize in 1981. His TASCHEN titles include Salvador Dalí - The Paintings, Matisse, and Erotica Universalis.

See preview pages here.

Salvador Dalí

“Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure—that of being Salvador Dalí.” He was a force unto himself, an icon of outrageousness, artistic brilliance, eccentricity, and unmistakable style. Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí y Domènech, Marquis of Pubol, was one of the foremost artists of the twentieth century, and in this concise narrative acclaimed art historian Mary Ann Caws provides a sharply written survey of his life and work. Salvador Dalí examines every twist and turn in Dalí’s long and multifaceted career and the pivotal artistic movements at whose center he stood. From his early life in the Catalan region and his expulsions from the School of Fine Arts in Madrid and other schools to the surrealist movement and his work with Buñuel on the films Un chein andalou and L’Âge d’or, Caws charts Dalí’s influences and creative process. Dalí’s turbulent personal life brought him in contact with a rich assortment of intellectual figures, and Caws considers his relationships with his family; his lovers, including the married Elena Diakonova; and with friends such as poet Federico Garcia Lorca. His writings, drawings, photography, and painted works offer up new clues about the artist under Caws’s incisive eye, as she analyzes his lesser-known writings and creative works, as well as his Surrealist paintings and “hand-painted dream photographs” such as The Persistence of Memory. A masterfully written biographical study, Salvador Dalí paints an arresting portrait of one of the most elusive artists of our time.

Dalí

Focusing on Salvador Dali, this volume in the "Masters of Art" series has 40 full-page colour plates, accompanied by commentaries discussing each individual work. Other illustrations show the artist at various points in his career, his contemporaries and comparative works.

Erotic Sketchbook: Salvador Dalí

Art Times has called Prestel's successful series of erotic sketchbooks, Wonderful little gifts for that special connoisseur of erotic drawing.A The newest title in the series features the work of Salvador Dali, bringing together more than thirty sketches and watercolors that display the artist's classical training and skill as a draftsman. Admirers of Dali's work will recognize the imagery that lies beneath much of his erotic work yet many will be surprised by the quality of his sketches, which rival his paintings in their technical brilliance. Printed on quality stock and designed to imitate an artist's sketchbook-down to the cardboard cover and delicate red ribbon tie-this exquisite volume will please fans of Dali as well as erotic art collectors.

Salvador Dalí

Picasso called Dali an outboard motor that's always running. Dali thought himself a genius with a right to indulge in whatever lunacy popped into his head. Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was one of the century's greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics - and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the insights of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis to the art of painting, approaching the subconscious with extraordinary sensitivity and imagination. This lively monograph presents the infamous Surrealist in full color and in his own words. His provocative imagery is all here, from the soft watches to the notorious burning giraffe. A friend of the artist for over thirty years, privy to the reality behind Dali's public image, author Robert Descharnes is uniquely qualified to analyze Dali - both the man and the myth.

Dalí And Film

Salvador Dalí was one of the most famous and also one of the most notorious artists of the twentieth century, his flamboyant personal style establishing him as a showman in the popular imagination. While the centenary of Dalí's birth in 2004 was marked by a worldwide series of exhibitions, events and publications, no thorough investigation has taken place of the part played by film as a key influence on Dali's art, nor of his extensive involvement in film-based projects. Dali and Film redresses this omission, presenting both the major works that reflect Dali's preoccupation with film and material related to the key film projects on which he worked. Cinema contributed to Dali's understanding of both the power and the uses of illusion. In 1929 and 1930 he collaborated with Luis Bunuel on the startling and highly controversial films, Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or. Many years later, Dali worked with the Disney studios in Hollywood and with Alfred Hitchcock, devising a dream sequence for the psychological thriller Spellbound that remains one of the most innovative in cinema. Over the intervening years, Dali had come to reject the implicit elitism of modernist film and embrace instead the popularity of mainstream cinema, recognising its potential to bring his work to a vast audience. Dali and Film reveals the depth and persistence of Dali's fascination with the medium, bringing a new dimension to our understanding of one of the great masters of twentieth-century art.

The Dalí Renaissance: New Perspectives On His Life And Art After 1940

Perhaps the best-known artist of the international Surrealist movement, Salvador Dali (1904-1989) transformed his dreams and personal obsessions into some of the most original and arresting images of the twentieth century. While the Surrealist works from his early years are widely known and admired, Dali's controversial late works - often inspired by science and religion - have received a different reception. In this important book, experts provide a revisionist account of the last five decades of the artist's career. The Dali Renaissance explores a wide range of topics from this period, including the artist's fascination with religion and popular culture, his 'Nuclear Mysticism' lecture tour of the midwestern United States, and his influence on film, photography, design, and fashion. Based on an international symposium held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the volume also features a fascinating discussion between two of Dali's former companions, Ultra Violet and Amanda Lear, which provides a glimpse into his personal life and working methods.

Dalí And Me

Salvador Dali's (1904-89) surrealist paintings such as "The Persistence of Memory "and "The Metamorphosis of Narcissus" are internationally beloved for their unforgettable images and eccentric metaphors for the human condition. His lesser-known but equally intriguing writings, on the other hand, are remarkably coarse, describing human bodies and evocations of sexuality with a bewildering mixture of crude realism and naive simplicity. "Dali and Me" is an account by art historian and controversial author Catherine Millet of a highly personal encounter with the artist's celebrated paintings and self-reflective writings. One of the first studies of the notoriously idiosyncratic artist's essays, this revolutionary book reveals all the narcissism, anxiety, and visual genius of the most famous--and infamous--of the surrealists. Based on years of scrupulous research into Dali's life and art yet deeply enriched by Millet's autobiographical journey, this landmark volume uncovers the reverberations of Dali's influence on his friends and contemporaries. In its explorations of both Millet's and Dali's inner workings, "Dali and Me "ultimately becomes an argument in book form that personal involvement can be the key to understanding one of the most compelling oeuvres in art history.

Dalí

Salvador Dalí - A genius with a right to indulge in whatever lunacy popped into his head

Picasso called Dalí "an outboard motor that's always running." Dalí thought himself a genius with a right to indulge in whatever lunacy popped into his head.

Painter, sculptor, writer and film maker, Salvador Dalí (1904 - 1989) was one of the century's greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics - and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the insights of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis to the art of painting. Dalí brought extraordinary sensitivity, imagination and concern for precision to bear upon submerged levels of consciousness.

This lively biography presents the infamous Surrealist Dalí in full colour and in his own words. His provocative ideas are all here, from the soft watches to the notorious burning giraffe. And the fantastic phenomenon that was Salvador Dalí is grasped entire and placed in his various contexts.

Salvador Dalí: An Illustrated Life

Salvador Dali (1908-89) is the artist most closely associated in the public mind with Surrealism, having created several of that movement's most iconic images. The creator of paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, designs, films and literary works, he is without doubt one of the most famous artists of the twentieth century. His apparent eccentricity, his talent for shameless self-promotion through outrageous stunts and his alleged cupidity have also made him one of the most critically controversial artists of recent times. The story of his extraordinary life is intimately bound up with his art. For the first time this book provides a visual history of Dali's entire career, illustrated with personal photographs, sketchbooks, drawings, letters, posters and commercial designs, many drawn from the archives at the Dali Foundation and never before published, as well as reproductions of his famous works. The photographs give a key insight into Dali's career in them we see Dali as a child, in his studio, with his inseparable wife and muse Gala, travelling the world and fraternising with celebrities including Harpo Marx, Walt Disney, Sidney Poitier, Andy Warhol, Gregory Peck, Alice Cooper and Robert Kennedy. In hundreds of images Dali poses for the camera, always aware of and manipulating his self-image in a way that in today's celebrity-obsessed times seems extremely prescient. The inclusion of numerous designs for handbills and exhibition posters as well as magazine covers and book jackets gives some idea of the scale of Dali's prolific output beyond the gallery walls. Colour reproductions of famous sculptures and paintings ensure that this accessible and concise biography can be read in conjunction with the works that brought him fame. With its wealth of previously unpublished material, this will be a key addition to scholarship on Dali as well as providing new insights into the life and creative processes of this uniquely fascinating and hugely popular artist.