I don't know much about art, but this set of two books that contain every Dali painting created over his long life makes me feel like an expert on his many styles! Along with the fantastic full color pictures is a complete biography of his life and explanation of his styles. The set weighs in at nearly 8 lbs! It is well worth the money!

In order to rightfully qualify as a "definitive" type art book it must posses certain features. (1) - Quality 4 color reproductions true to the original artwork. With a high volume of reprints spanning the course of the artists productivity. (2) - Exemplary narrative text by qualified authorship. Indeed this comprehensive large edition triumphs in these requirements. . . . . . . Robert Descharnes' (the principle author) intimate knowledge stems from his 40 year personal relationship with Dali. Plus his own renouned contributions to art journals make this an interesting read. The reproductions are first-rate. This exact same book had previously been printed (1994) in a smaller format. And contrary to the above amazon stats; this is an 2006 edition. The colors are more accurate in this new edition. This is especially noted in the reproduced paper drawings. And 'Sfumato' was executed using a candle flame to scorch/smoke the paper. Beautifully reproduced here while it was blue in the previous edition. In 'Invention of the Monsters' you can make out the fine marblized grain of the sarcophagus table. In no other text in my Dali collection (#8) is this evident. Yet in 'The Cosmic Athletes' the intracranial contents of one figure is pitch black where it should have tea brown striations. These nuances may be too subtle to nitpick, but worth mentioning. . . . In 1984 Descharnes put out a gigantic sized $$$$ volume. The colors duller. The text good, but scattered. It did include some rare poster projects. None the less this 2006 edition proves to be a wonderful art book. Quoting Dali I'm sure he would agree; "Dali lovers could have sat down at table to feast on me!".

If you ever saw a painting from Dali and want to have a source to go and look, dig and be surprised, then this is the book.
I am very happy with this book. I made some research before buying this, and this is far the best.
Maybe you are not an arts fan but you like Dali paintings, then this is the book you want.
Highly recommendable

Well, at nearly 6kg, a whap in the head with this thing would certainly loosen some screws. That's not what I meant, though.

It's huge, beautiful, and encyclopedic. It covers Dalí's entire career, with all of the different stages he went through in creating his art and himself. There's just too much to try to summarize here - the book takes over 1600 photos to illustrate his life. Most of them depict Dalí's art or Dalí himself (I still suspect that he lived his entire life as a work of performance art). Others depict influences on his art. Some show work by other artists, for contrast or as part of Dalí's heritage. A few show features of the natural world, a rock formation, for example, that the alchemy of Dalí's magic transmuted into new visual elements.

And, throughout, there is Gala - Dalí's wife, agent, manager, muse, model, and tour guide for his visit to planet Earth. I hate the phrase that would call Gala his "better half," but I'm sure that Dalí would have been incomplete in many ways without her. Certainly, his finished works owe much to the way she inspired him.

I fault this wonderful work for only one thing, but one that I find maddening: there is no index. In partial compensation, end matter lists each photo or work of art, in numerical order as they appeared in the book, with provenance and other information about any art shown. A bibliogrpahy would have been nice, too - but no index! With a book like this, it almost feels as if the last twenty pages had been ripped out.

Don't let that bit of pedantry get in the way of enjoying this marvelous collection, though. You might want to supplement this book with some of Dalí's own writing, such as The unspeakable confessions of Salvador Dali or Diary of a Genius, to name only a few. I can't imagine that you'll want another display of his artwork, except maybe the lithos.

-- wiredweird

I have many books on Dali and his artwork. Some I have bought, some others have bought for me, but I was given this book as a gift, and I love it. I have decided that I do not need any of the other books on him, this one has all the famous pieces and more, some of the pictures I never even knew that he had created. Plus it is very informative. This is an amazing book, I would recommend anyone interested in surrealism to buy this book, for its price, it is a steal!