He painted his first picture in 1910 at the age of six. At ten he discovered Impressionist art, and at fourteen the Pompiers. By 1927 he was Dali, and the poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, a friend of his youth, wrote an ’Ode to Salvador Dali.’Years later Dall claimed that Lorca had been very attracted to him and had tride to sodomize him, but had not quite managed it. Dali’s thirst for scandal was unquenchable. His parents had named him Salvador "because he was the chosen one who was come to save painting from th~ deadly menace of abstract art, academic Surrealism, Dadaism, and any kind of anarchic "ism" whatsoever.

  “A dandy,” wrote Charles Baudelaire, "must be looking in his mirror at all times, waking and sleeping." Dali could easily have become the living proof of Baudelaire’s dictum. But the literal mirror was not enough for him. Dali needed mirrors of many kinds: his pictures, his admirers,newspapers and magazines and television. And even that still left him unsatisfied.

 So one Christmas he took a walk in the streets of New York carrying a bell. He would ring it whenever he felt people were not paying enough attention to him. "The thought of not being recognised was unbearable.“ True to himself to the bitter end, he delighted in following Catalonian television’s bulletins on his state of health during his last days alive (in Quiron hospital in Barcelona); he wanted to hear people talking about him, and he also wanted to know whether his health would revive or whether he would be dying soon. At the age of six he wanted to be a female cook - he specified the gender. At seven he wanted to be Napoleon. "Ever since, my ambition has been continually on the increase, as has my megalomania: now all I want to be is Salvador Dali. But the closer I get to my goal, the further Salvador Dall drifts away from me.”

The Dandy and his Mirror

The Proof of Love

Edible Beauty

The Conquest of the Irrational

The Magic Secrets of Avida Dollars

The Mystical Manifesto

Paths to Immortality

Dali: A Chronology

Notes

Bibliography

Dali’s Exhibitions

Picture Credits