For Ian Gibson, the key to understanding Dali lies in the powerful and little-understood emotion of shame. But this is no one-dimensional study.

In Madrid as a young art student, Dali made his mark, launching his career in a triumphant show of early works, some in the Cubist mode and others that he termed "realistic." Madrid figured critically in Dali's career in other ways. It was there that he met the future film director Luis Bunuel, with whom he would soon collaborate, and the charismatic writer Federico Garcia Lorca, with whom an intimacy developed that would only deepen Dali's sexual confusion.

Among the many artists who influenced the young Dali were two Spaniards living in Paris: Picasso, whom Dali met at his studio during a hectic visit to Paris, and Joan Miro, a fellow Catalan who took Dali under his wing. It was film, not paintings, that plunged Dali into the surrealist vortex in Paris: his collaboration with Bunuel on the violent and bizarre Un Chien andalou. It led to a successful exhibition of his paintings in Paris, paintings at least as shocking in their imagery as the film.

Soon after, Dali found aristocratic patrons for his work and, more importantly, the enigmatic, libidinous Gala, a Russian emigre whose marriage Dali broke up and with whom he subsequently lived in unconsummated bliss - and fright. Their life together forms a tragicomic epic that Gibson follows from Paris back to Spain and on to New York and California where Dali is embraced by Hollywood and some of its most prominent players - Alfred Hitchcock, Clark Gable, and Bob Hope, among them.

Rollickingly funny adventures alternate with scandalous episodes of self-promotion, and, as Dali slips into a long decline, Gibson dramatically reveals how the great exploiter became victimized by people all too eager to prey on his lust for recognition and riches.

Abundantly illustrated with thirty-eight full-color plates and over one hundred black-and-white pictures. The Shameful Life of Salvador Dali brings the artist vividly before us through Gibson's interviews with some of those closest to Dali and his extensive exploration of recently discovered sources in addition to Dali's voluminous correspondence, novels, poems, and essays.