Unorthodox Genius

For CHRISTINE ARGILLET, Salvador Dalí was not just a surrealist figure, but a friend whose lively imagination she witnessed first-hand.

- SAMANTHA FRANCIS

Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí is celebrated for his strikingly bizarre works, from melting clocks in 'The Persistence of Memory' (1931) to the sensual grotesque of 'The Great Masturbator' (1929).

To Christine Argillet, however, he was "full of energy, humour, and spontaneity". The daughter of Pierre Argillet, Dalí's publisher and confidant, she first met the artist when she was five or six years old.

Her earliest memory of him dates back to 1969, when he visited her family's home near Paris. Upon being shown a Sony video camera—a bulky, unfamiliar device at the time—he was immediately captivated and began dancing across the lawn, disappearing behind a tree, and then reappearing in front of the camera.

"He was playful, curious, and completely immersed in the moment," she recalls fondly. "That combination of theatricality and inventiveness is what made him so remarkable as a person and as an artist."