Salvador Dalí is roped down by his famous moustache from a helicopter, chased weightlessly through the air by cats or shown in a rain of popcorn and baguettes. Only one person has taken such pictures of the artist of the century Dalí: Philippe Halsman (1906-1979).
Although one of the most successful star photographers of his time, whose portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein and John F. Kennedy became icons and who provided hundreds of covers for major magazines, he was almost forgotten. Little is known about the extent of his astonishingly equal collaboration with Dalí, whom he met in exile in New York in 1941. Over the course of three decades, he produced a primarily photographic oeuvre that was ahead of its time in many respects.
Thanks to access to Halsman's private archive, Anna Feldhaus has succeeded in making a truly new discovery. No other photographer reflected Dalí's playful recklessness as well as he did. No one else has created a more accurate overall portrait of this master of masks than Philippe Halsman.
