This is the first book to explore in depth the development of Dali's early work up to about 1930 - work that led to his emergence as one of the greatest and most popular Surrealist painters. It shows how deeply his later images, obsessions, and attitudes were rooted in his youthful experiences in Catalonia and Spain, and makes a major contribution to the study of this period of Spanish art.

Published to accompany an international exhibition of Dali's work to be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, London's Hayward Gallery and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, the book contains innovative essays by some of the best-known writers on Dali, Surrealism and contemporary cultural life in Spain, including Dawn Ades, Ian Gibson and Rafael Santos Torroella.

Dali's upbringing in Figueres and Cadaques, his student years in Madrid, his relationship with the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, his collaboration with the filmmaker Bunuel, the critical reception of his work, and his ambivalent connection to the French Surrealists before 1930 are all discussed, illuminating in an unprecedented way the imagery of his paintings.

This highly original reassessment of Dali's artistic complexity and importance as an innovator contains extensive, previously unpublished documentary material and has been designed to recreate the distinctive look of publications of the period. It includes an extended selection of his texts in translation, an illustrated chronology, many drawings and color plates of the most significant paintings of the period.