As a very young artist in training at the academy in Madrid, Salvador Dali worked in two distinct modes - a highly detailed naturalism (under the influence of the 'return to order') and a more avant-garde, cubist-derived style that owed much to Picasso (whom Dali visited in Paris in 1926). Then, in 1927, the twenty-three-year-old artist, influenced by Andre Breton's "Surrealist Manifesto" of 1924 and the paintings of such artists as Joan Miro and Yves Tanguy, began to move towards Surrealism. In the spring of 1929, to coincide with the shooting of Bunuel's Un Chien andalou, Dali organized his first Paris exhibition, thereby gaining acclaim as a full member of the surrealist movement. This book offers a wealth of new material about Dali's formative years as a young artist in Spain and first years in Paris. Felix Fanes, one of the most knowledgeable Dali scholars in the world, transforms perceptions of the artist and shows how the stage was set for the emergence of Dali's mature artistic personality. With a fresh and detailed assessment of Dali's truly revolutionary work, Fanes reveals the central role of the artist not only in the development of the Surrealist movement but also the course of twentieth-century art.