Dali by Paul Moorhouse
Moorehouse’s Dali was extremely thorough. The book covers more than his biographical data. It really details his philosophies and the incidents behind the recurring images in his paintings. This was a good book. Dali’s kind of a sick dude, though. The more you know about his paintings, the less appealing they are.
I concur one hundred percent about Dali’s not being particularly appealing once you learn about him. So many people (particularly college students…) defend his artistic integrity and the deep, metaphorical meanings of his pieces. In reality he’s just a twisted, self-aggrandizing shill. His insistence on relying on his “unconscious” or “subconscious” is absurd. Mostly, I find it so because he’s constantly consciously invoking that which is supposed to be HIDDEN from one’s conscious mind. He WAS a genius of a self-promoter though. Almost as good as Picasso was…
Overall, though, a twisted jerk of a painter.