DALI by Robert Radford. (Paperback) Paidon 1997

DALI by Robert Radford.

One of the best-known and most visually influential artists of the twentieth century, Salvador Dali (1904-89) redrfined the boundaries of art, fashion and popular culture. His melting watches, space elephants and Mae west's lips sofa have become firmly established both in the popular imagination and the world of advertising. In this fascinating account, Dali the painter, writer, film-maker, illustrator, object-maker, jewellery designer, myth-maker and performance artisr are all given proper recognition.

Robert Radford analyses the artist's complex personality and the rich variety of his work against the background of ideoloical and political conflict that erupted in the Spanish Civil war and the Second world war. he traces Dali's career from the crucial early years in the Spanish town of Figueres to membership of the Surrealist group in 1930s' Paris, then on to new York and Hollywood, where his purposefully extravagant behaviour made him a media star. Radford succeeds in making the reader rethink and re-evaluate the work of one of the most popular but least understood artists of the twentieth century.

A paperback published in 1997 by Phaidon Press Ltd