With 101 Life magazine covers to his credit,

Philippe Halsman (1906-1979) was one of

the leading portrait photographers of his

time. In addition to his distinguished career

in photojournalism, Halsman was one of

the great pioneers of experimental photography,

motivated by a profound desire to

push this youngest of art forms toward new

frontiers by using innovative and unorthodox

photographic techniques.

One of Halsman's favorite subjects

was Salvador Dali, the glittering and controversial

painter and theorist with whom

the photographer shared a unique friendship

and extraordinary professional collaboration

that spanned over thirty years.

Whenever Dali imagined a photograph so

strange that its production seemed impossible,

Halsman tried to find the solution,

and invariably succeeded.

As Halsman explains in his postface,

Dali's Mustache is the fruit of this marriage

of the minds. The jointly conceived and

seemingly nonsensical questions and

answers reveal the gleeful humor and assumed

cynicism for which Dali is famous,

while the marvelous and inspired images

of Dali's mustache brilliantly display

Halsman's consumate skill and extraordinary

inventiveness as a photographer.

This combination of wit, absurdity,

and the off-handedly profound is irresistible

and has contributed to the enduring

fascination inspired by this unique photographic

interview, which has become a cult

classic and valuable collector's item since

its original publication in 1954. The present

volume faithfully reproduces the first edition

and will introduce a new generation

to the irreverent humor and imaginative

genius of two great artists.

Philippe Halsman's memorable photographs

of the leading statesmen, scientists,

entertainers and artists of our time continue

to appear in magazines and books. In 1944,

four years after arriving in the United States

from France, his colleagues elected him

first president of the American Society of

Magazine Photographers. In 1958 he was

named one of the world's ten best photographers

in an international poll.

His other publications include The

Frenchman, Piccoli (a fairy tale), Philippe

Halsman's Jump Book, Halsman on the

Creation of Photographic Ideas , and Sight

and Insight , as well as Portraits and

Halsman at Work , which were published by

his family after his death in 1979. His work

is represented in the permanent collections

of numerous museums in the United States

and abroad.