Salvador Dali: a biography

ISBN-10: 052524459X
ISBN-13: 9780525244592
Series: Salvador Dalí
Pages: 307
Language: English
Published: 1986
Publisher: Dutton
Author: Meryle Secrest

Description

Salvador Dalí: mad genius or cunning manipulator? That question has haunted Dalí's career. Ever since he burst upon the scene in the 1920s with his astounding draughtsmanship and surrealistic vision he has been both admired and reviled. Meryle Secrest goes behind the carefully maintained façade to reveal many hitherto unknown details of Dalí's troubled childhood, suggesting that the artist's early works are actually autobiographical to a much greater extent than has been thought. Her study examines Dalí's childhood to find the origins of his later behavior and the reason for his frantic attempts to assert his individuality. Dalí's emotional crises, his successes and failures in Europe and America, his careers as artist, designer and showman, are vividly and compelling described, as is his mysterious near-death in a 1984 fire and his final years as prisoner of his own self-made persona. -- From publisher's description.