Even by the standards of famous artists, Dali was particularly self-obsessed and opinionated, but that character was a key part of his success. He took on new challenges that others would have shied away from. There was also plenty of material on his life and career because of the extravagant lifestyle that he led, his constantly outspoken nature, and also the sheer length of his career. He was also highly productive too, and also shared different social circles across his lifetime, which allowed others to have their say on the man, too. We have provided a selection of the best books covering his life within this section, as well as the more famous publications that he himself authored.
The surrealist art movement is a popular modern art movement which gave us some of the finest contributors to 20th century art and no-one can spend time learning about this group of artists without coming across Dali at some point, who many consider to have been the spearhead of this group. Most books about the artist concentrate on this part of his life, but it should not be forgotten that he also produced large number of impressionist, cubist and expressionist paintings during the earlier point of his career. One issue regarding his work is that it was so productive it is pretty much impossible to cover all of his career within one single publication.
The book displayed in this section has proven to be a useful resource for this website, and is titled Dali - The Paintings. It was put together by Robert Descharnes and Gilles Neret and published by Taschen, who are certainly one of the market leaders in art book publishing. There have been several versions of the book, with the most recent coming in 2019. We also found "Dali - The Centenary Retrospective" which was published by Thames & Hudson to be another useful resource on the artist. Both are large books which will keep you busy for many months and both contain new information even for the most avid follower of this artist. We have written more about both of these titles in their own specific pages, which you can find from the links included below. We will endeavour to keep the list updated with new versions of existing books and also brand new publications as they become available.
The interest in this artist has meant that in recent years there have been books which aim to specialise on a specific theme within his life. There are plenty to choose from, with some perhaps focusing on the key relationships in his life, such as his marriage to Gala Dali. There are then those which perhaps focus on some of the other artistic disciplines in which he was involved, such as film, jewellery or sculpture. Even those individual subjects have a wealth of artistic output and also biographical information for inclusion. As we move forward into the future, it is likely that many more specialist books will continue to appear, most likely in collaboration with upcoming exhibitions that draw together a particular strand of his work.
Those who buy some of these wonderful Dali books but are still left wanting more should check out the global coverage of his work in a number of art galleries and museums. There are several devoted entirely to his own career, both in the US and Europe, as well as other paintings featured within a more general collection of other venues. Whilst many are now in private collections, there is still a huge amount of his life that can be seen for free, if you are in the right location. This is one of the obvious benefits of having been so productive during his own lifetime, where it would simply be impossible for private buyers to get ownership of his entire collection, particularly with a prominent foundation set up in his name which continues to promote his name to the masses and with the right intentions.
