Salvador Dalí has become synonymous with Surrealism. His soft watches, burning giraffes, and lobster phones They seem like a natural language of dreams. But his work holds many more surprises. Dalí was driven by the desire to to engage with the world : in his exploration of the Catalan landscape or his reaction to the atomic bomb, which he processed in paintings where elements like atoms float side by side. He developed his own “ paranoid-critical method ,” explored optical illusions, double images, and stereoscopic paintings, invented the “surrealist object with symbolic function,” created magnificent sets for his own ballets, and staged himself in photographic collaborations as A mustachioed genius . He "painted like an angel," as critics always acknowledged. In later years, he turned to classical art: he updated and subverted the imagery of the Renaissance in monumental visions and eventually created quiet, personal homages to Michelangelo and Velázquez.

This comprehensive overview comprises two volumes: One book in baby SUMO format shows Dalí's most important works are presented in an unprecedented size and level of detail in print , revealing every brushstroke of the artist. The book is accompanied by a chronological volume with texts by Montse Aguer and Carme Ruiz from the Fundació Gala- Salvador Dalí. in Figueres, the artist's hometown. Taking into account the latest research findings, the authors recount The history of the art and the artist, with numerous quotations from his own writings, letters, and contemporary reviews , illustrated with rare and iconic portrait photographs, magazine articles, sketches, book illustrations, and other works in various media. We meet the young Dalí as precocious, headstrong talent We meet him, who joins the Catalan avant-garde and soon becomes inseparable friends with the poet Federico García Lorca. We accompany him on his first visit to Paris and his shy encounter in Picasso's studio, before he becomes known in select circles in 1929 through his first film with Luis Buñuel. Soon His paintings shock with dirty underwear and masturbation idols not only the bourgeois audience, but also the die-hard surrealist avant-gardists . In the same eventful year Dalí meets his muse Gala , who from then on is inextricably linked to his life and his vision. We witness her move to America, where Dalí becomes a public figure, appearing in the media and on the pages of society magazines, participating in theater and fashion projects, growing his legendary mustache, and in Hollywood with Hitchcock and Disney collaborating . Finally, we see how the two return to Spain after the war, where they stage a life like at court, and the artist builds his own legacy at the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres.

Even 35 years after his death, Dalí still fascinates and surprises; and 40 years after his first TASCHEN monograph, a new, large-scale homage to this titan of modern painting is published here.