Dali

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Dali Paul Moorhouse 'Everv time someone dies, it's Jules Verne's fault,' claimed Salvador Dali. Whoever was responsible for his death in 1989, it brought to an end one of the twentieth century's most extraordinary lives. For more than sixty years Dali, with his 'trademark' moustache, epitomized the eccentric artist; he once tried to give a lecture dressed in a diving suit and arrived at the Sorbonne in a Rolls Royce fiiled with cauliflowers. But cultivating publicity with outrageous behaviour did to somé extent compromise Dali's artistic reputation. Although his name is widely known, it is more as a personalitv than an artist. This concentration on 'Dali the showman' has tended to underplay his exceptional skill as a draftsman. He could render the wildest excesses of his fertile imagination in a technique learned from the old masters. Images as diverse as the famous 'melting watches' of The Persistence of Memory, the Christ of St John of the Cross, and The Metamorphosis of Narcissus... Tovább

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Dali Paul Moorhouse 'Everv time someone dies, it's Jules Verne's fault,' claimed Salvador Dali. Whoever was responsible for his death in 1989, it brought to an end one of the twentieth century's most extraordinary lives. For more than sixty years Dali, with his 'trademark' moustache, epitomized the eccentric artist; he once tried to give a lecture dressed in a diving suit and arrived at the Sorbonne in a Rolls Royce fiiled with cauliflowers. But cultivating publicity with outrageous behaviour did to somé extent compromise Dali's artistic reputation. Although his name is widely known, it is more as a personalitv than an artist. This concentration on 'Dali the showman' has tended to underplay his exceptional skill as a draftsman. He could render the wildest excesses of his fertile imagination in a technique learned from the old masters. Images as diverse as the famous 'melting watches' of The Persistence of Memory, the Christ of St John of the Cross, and The Metamorphosis of Narcissus are depicted in a manner both striking and subtle, moving and disturbing. Dali explores the rich complexity of his imagination and sets him in context as both a scion of the Surrealist movement and a fiercely independent spirit. A comprehensive introduction focuses on Dali's development and uses of the paranoiac-critical method in the early 1930s as a means of liberating the creative unconsciousness. The author argues that the paintings of this period, with their hallucinatory force, represent the most originál and exciting period in Dali's long working life, and relates them to both his earlier Surrealist work and his post-war painting. 60 of his most representative works are reproduced in large-format full color, and detailed commentaries elucidate their complex and disturbing imagery, the expression of Dali's personal obsessions. Dali is a fitting memóriái to a unique artistic phenomenon.
Paul Moorhouse was educated at the University of Liverpool, taking a first degree in English Literature and Philosophv, and at the University of London where he gained an MA in History of Art. He alsó trained as a teacher of art. Following a period spent as a portrait sculptor, he was on the staff of the Government Art Collection in London before taking up his present position as a curator in the Modern Collection at the Tate Gallery. In addition to reviews for art journals he has contributed numerous entries to the Tate Gallery's catalogues of acquisitions. Recent publications include an essav on Francis Bacon and exhibition catalogues on Dhruva Mistry and Albert Irvin. front cover: The Metamorphosis ofNarcissus (detail), 1937 (Tate Gallery, London) BACK COVER: Christ of St John of the Cross, 1951 (Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum) • .5(6 SÖ Vissza