"Warning! This book is preposterous," says the back cover. This collaboration between the flamboyant Spanish painter and the Latvian-born portraitist is also a surrealistic work of art. Halsman understood the extroverted Dali better than any other photographer; their talents and personalities were the perfect complement to each other. In the course of this witty and inventive homage, the artist's celebrated whiskers tie themselves in a knot, are pressed into service as a paintbrush, become the hands of a clock and blemish the face of the Mona Lisa.
About the Author
Philippe Halsman's memorable photographs of the leading statesmen, scientists, entertainers and artists of our time continue to appear in magazines and books. In 1944, four years after arriving in the Unites States from France, his colleagues elected him first president of the American Society of Magazine Photographers. In 1958 he was named one of the world's ten best photographers in an international poll.
His other publications include The Frenchman, Piccoli (a fairy tale), Philippe Halsman's Jump Book, Halsman on the Creation of Photographic Ideas, and Sight and Insight, as well as Portraits and Halsman at Work, which were published by his family after his death in 1979. His work is represented in the permanent collections of numerous museums in the United States and abroad.