The most complete study to date of Salvador Dalí's pictorial oeuvre. After years of research, Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret have located works that had remained inaccessible, paradigmatic examples of Dalí's representations of the subconscious and its mysterious workings. This lavish edition, updated with new captions, relates Dalí's paintings to his own writings, drawings and archival material.

Surrealist of Surrealists

The essential book on Salvador Dalí's pictorial oeuvre

At the age of six, Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) wanted to be a cook. When he was seven, he wanted to be Napoleon. From that moment on - he said later - my ambition never stopped growing, and with it my megalomania. Now I only want to be Salvador Dalí, I have no greater desire. In the course of his life Dalí set out to become Dalí, that is, one of the most important artists and eccentrics of the 20th century.
This imposing volume is the most comprehensive study of Dalí's pictorial oeuvre ever published. After years of research, Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret located paintings by the master that had long remained inaccessible - so many, in fact, that almost half of those illustrated in the book are barely known.
Rather than offering a catalogue raisonné, this book contextualises Dalí's work and its meanings in the light of contemporary documents, from writings and drawings to materials from other facets of his work, such as ballet, film, fashion, advertising and objets d'art.
The study is divided into two parts. The first examines Dalí's beginnings, when he was an unknown artist. We see how the young Dalí participated in all the isms (Impressionism, Pointillism, Cubism, Fauvism, Purism and Futurism) with mastery and ingenuity, and how he borrowed elements from the dominant trends before ridiculing and abandoning them. The second part reveals the results of a lifetime of research, as well as the great legacy he left in works such as La pesca de los atunes (1966/1967) and El toreador alucinógeno (1970). It includes unpublished tributes to Velázquez and Michelangelo, painted for the same purpose as the variations on past masters by his contemporary, Picasso.
We discover how, moved by the desire to unravel the secrets of great works and become a mid-20th century Velázquez, Dalí became Dalí.

About the authors

Gilles Néret (1933-2005) was an art historian, journalist, writer and museum curator. He founded the SEIBU museum and the Wildenstein gallery in Tokyo, edited the art magazines L'ŒilyConnaissance des Arts, and received the Élie Faure prize in 1981. The numerous books he wrote for TASCHEN includeDalí The Pictorial Work, MatisseyErotica Universalis.

Robert Descharnes (1926-2014), a photographer and writer, published studies on great artists such as Antoni Gaudí, Auguste Rodin and Salvador Dalí, among others. He documented and catalogued Dalí's paintings and writings, and was considered the foremost expert on the artist's work.

Publisher: Taschen