Dali: The Centenary Retrospective

This is an opportunity to reassess Dali’s work as a whole and to explore, in greater depth than ever before, his so-called ‘late work’ as well as the early and surrealist periods.

The density and originality of Dali's paintings become ever more striking as time goes on, but should not be hived off from his other activities: writer, poet, printmaker, sculptor, filmmaker, inventor of objects, theatre designer and curator of exhibitions. Dalí made the two last great mysteries of his life his subject: the human mind and the structure of the physical universe.

Very few artists have been able to sustain the range of activities he undertook and it is not just as a painter that he will be remembered. His writings are now seen not just as ancillary to his paintings but as major texts. These are part of a continuous flow of ideas, optimism and ambition for which ‘success’ was an irrelevant or ambiguous concept.