Art on the BBC: The Great Salvador Dali

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Art on the BBC

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

How has television influenced our understanding of the world's greatest artists?

Art historians delve into six decades of the BBC archives. How has television influenced our understanding of the world's greatest artists?

The Great Salvador Dali

BBC Four

David Dibosa

Louisa Buck

Jonathan Jones

Ben Luke

Ed Stobart

Emma Parkins

David Starkey

Art on the BBC: Series 2: The Great Salvador Dali

Series 2

BBC Four - Art on the BBC, Series 2, The Great Salvador Dali

David Dibosa explores the BBC archives to create a television history of Salvador Dali.

Art historian David Dibosa explores the BBC archives to create a television history of one of art's greatest showmen, Salvador Dali.

Art historian David Dibosa examines six decades of BBC archive material to create a television history of Salvador Dali. Often called art's greatest showman and the world's first celebrity artist, Dali shamelessly used TV to promote his art and himself. Dali's striking, dreamlike images made his name synonymous with surrealism, and he shocked the world through film, fashion, sculpture and architecture.

In this account, David hunts through dozens of BBC programmes to try to understand the real Salvador Dali, not just the more familiar eccentric show-off. Taking in films presented down the decades by Robert Hughes, Sister Wendy and Philippa Perry, David's rich dive into the archives, including Dali’s own films, reveals how our understanding of the artist has changed dramatically over the years.

Whatever the era, Dali has always been important to programme makers – so much so that on BBC Four’s launch night in 2002, one of the broadcasts was a star-studded and surreal comic exploration of Dali's early career, featuring Stephen Fry, Matt Lucas and Ewen Bremner. David also delves into Dali's fractured relationship with the surrealists and his own family, and his life-long passion for his wife Gala, who was the engine behind his later career and helped him take America by storm.

Art on the BBC: Series 2

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