Picasso called Dali "an outboard motor that's always running." Dali thought himself a genius with a right to indulge in whatever lunacy popped into his head.

Painter, sculptor, writer and film maker, Salvador Dali (1904 - 1989) was one of the century's greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics - and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the insights of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis to the art of painting. Dali brought extraordinary sensitivity, imagination and concern for precision to bear upon submerged levels of consciousness.

This lively biography presents the infamous Surrealist Dali in full colour and in his own words. His provocative ideas are all here, from the soft watches to the notorious burning giraffe. And the fantastic phenomenon that was Salvador Dali is grasped entire and placed in his various contexts.