DaJ&j
SALVADOR DALI
&
PHILIPPE HALSMAN
Willi 101 L(/emagazine 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 photo¬
graphy, motivated by a profound desire to
push this youngest of art forms toward new
frontiers by using innovative and unortho¬
dox photographic techniques.
One of Halsman’s favorite subjects
was Salvador Dali, the glittering and con¬
troversial painter and theorist with whom
the photographer shared a unique friend¬
ship and extraordinary professional col¬
laboration that spanned over thirty years.
Whenever Dali imagined a photograph so
strange that its production seemed im¬
possible, 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 as¬
sumed cynicism for which Dali is famous,
while the marvelous and inspired images
of Dali’s mustache brilliantly display
Halsman’s consumate skill and extraor¬
dinary inventiveness as a photographer.
This combination of wit, absurdity,
and the off handedly profound is irresist¬
ible and has contributed to the enduring
fascination inspired by this unique photo¬
graphic 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 ed¬
ition and will introduce a new generation
to the irreverent humor and imaginative
genius of two great artists.
ISDN: 2-08013-560-0
Dali’s Mustache
A
Photographic
Interview
by
SALVADOR DALI
and
PHILIPPE HALSMAN
Flammarion
to GALA
Who is the guardian angel of my mustache also.
—Dali
to YVONNE
For whom I shave daily.
—Philippe Halsman
Typesetting by P.F.C., Dole
Flammarion - 26, rue Raeine - 75006 Paris
Copyright © 1954 Salvador Dali and Philippe Halsman
Copyright © renewed 19112 Salvador Dali. Yvonne Halsman, Jane Halsman Hello and Irene Halsman
All photographs are the exclusive property of the Philippe Halsman estate.
Copyright © 1994 Flammarion
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by
any means, electronic, photocopy, mechanical including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from Flammarion.
N° dY'dition: FA3560-13
ISBN 2-08013-560-0
Printed in Spain
A PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD to the Second Edition 5
PREFACE by Salvador Dali 7
THE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 9-119
POSTFACE by Philippe Halsman 120
PUBLISHER’S NOTES on How Some
of the Photographs Were Made 125
FOREWORD
to the Second Edition
LONG before photography became popularly recognized as an art form,
a handful of individualistic photographers were dedicating themselves to
raising the level of the medium. In many cases, they did so by generating
ideas to be recorded on film. Such names include, among others, Man Ray,
B. assai, Ansel Adams, Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton, and Philippe
Halsman.
In grappling with Dali, Philippe Halsman went far beyond the usual.
The camera has only one eye, and Halsman was among the first of these
lensmen to modify the film itself. He also added a new dimension of wit and
humor. In cooperation with the world-famous and awesome Dali, Halsman
veered near surrealism and seized the opportunity to include Dali’s comical
imagination in what was put before the camera. In some instances,
Halsman then reworked the silver- images, creating a finished work that no
mechanical eye could capture.
This remarkable little book, first published in 1954, long ago became a
collector’s item. Today its republication is a tribute to both Philippe
Halsman, a great photographer, and to a showman named Salvador Dali,
who, fortunately for us all, “also painted.
A. Reynolds Morse
President
The Salvador Dali Foundation
St. Petersburg, Florida
PREFACE
by Salvador Dali
WHEN I WAS three, I wanted to be a cook.
When I was six, I wanted to be Napoleon.
Since then my ambition has done nothing
but grow.
At the age of 29, I undertook my first
American Campaign. On the day I disem¬
barked in New York, my photograph ap¬
peared on the cover of Time magazine. It
showed me wearing the smallest mustache
in the world. Since then the world has
shrunk considerably while my mustache,
like the power of my imagination, con¬
tinued to grow.
Since I don’t smoke, I decided to grow
a mustache—it is better for the health.
However, I always carried a jewel-stud¬
ded cigarette case in which, instead of
tobacco, were carefully placed several
mustaches, Adolphe Menjou style. I of¬
fered them politely to my friends:
“Mustache? Mustache? Mustache?”
Nobody dared to touch them. This was
my test regarding the sacred aspect of
mustaches.
In the Bible great significance is attrib¬
uted to the growth of human hair. Delila
believed in the power of hair; Dali does
too. In the 17th Century, Laporte, the in¬
ventor of “Natural Magic,” considered
mustaches and eyebrows as antennae
n
l
susceptible of capturing creative inspirations, as do antennae of insects
whose instinctive life is more refined. The legendary eyebrows of Plato and,,
even more, those of Leonardo da Vinci, almost covering his vision, are the
most renowned testimony to the glory of facial hair.
But it was the 20th Century, in which the most sensational hairy phe¬
nomenon was to occur: that of Salvador Dali’s mustache.
Many marvelous and inspirational uses of this mustache are shown in
this hook. But every day 1 find new ones. This very morning, and just at
the moment of not shaving myself, I discovered that my mustache can
serve as an ultra-personal brush. With the points of its hair, I can paint
a fly with all the details of his hair.
And while I am painting my fly, 1 think philosophically of my mustache,
to which all the flies and all the curiosities of my era came to he monoto¬
nously and irresistibly stuck. Some day perhaps one will discover a truth
almost as strange as this mustache — namely, that Salvador Dali was
possibly also a painter.
8
MAY I ASK YOU A FEW QUESTIONS ?
Yes, but don’t try to uncover my secret.
11
WHY DO YOU WEAR A MUSTACHE?
13
In order to pass unobserved.
15
AS USUAL, I DON’T FOLLOW YOU.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
17
Like two erect sentries, my mustache defends the
entrance to my real self.
19
ARE TWO SENTRIES ENOUGH?
21
Let’s not split hairs
23
BUT MUST IT ALWAYS BE ON THE
DEFENSIVE?
No, it is often offensive.
27
ISN’T YOUR MUSTACHE IMPRACTICAL
ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU TRAVEL?
No problem is too knotty for me.
31
WHY HAVE YOU NEVER BEEN
PSYCHOANALYZED?
33
No analyst could ever take me lying down.
35
HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU TRIED
37
WHY DO YOU PAINT?
41
-
Because I love art.
43
AND HOW’S BUSINESS?
HOW DO YOU GET SUCH SUPERB DETAIL
IN YOUR PAINTING?
49
Nature gave me my best tools.
51
HAVE YOU EVOLVED A DEFINITE STYLE ?
53
No, I am completely mobile.
bb
WHAT IS UGLINESS?
57
■*
Disorder.
59
WHAT IS BEAUTY?
61
n
Harmony.
63
WHAT IS SURREALISM?
65
Surrealism is myself.
67
ARE YOU ALWAYS SO SURE OF
YOURSELF?
69
Well, I have a few minor inner conflicts.
71
CONFIDENTIALLY, AREN’T YOU AN
EXTROVERTED EXHIBITIONIST?
73
Nonsense, I am an ingrown introvert
15
DALI, WHAT IS YOUR SECRET OF
SUCCESS?
Providing the right honey for the right fly at the
right time and place.
79
DOES A SUCCESSFUL ARTIST LIKE YOU
CARE MUCH FOR PRAISE?
81
I am always fishing
for compliments.
83
HOW DO YOU OBSERVE MOTHER S DAY?
85
DALI, I KNOW THERE IS A RAGING BULL
HIDDEN IN YOU, AS THERE IS IN EVERY
SPANIARD. IS THERE ANYTHING THAT
WOULD BRING IT OUT?
89
Only one thing: Swiss cheese.
91
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PERFUME
The essence of Dali.
9 r,
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF COMMUNIST
GROWTH DURING THE LAST HUNDRED
YEARS?
97
,£lAJ<v*
From the point of view of hair on the face, there
has heen a steady decline.
99
YOUR MUSTACHE LOOKS SO RIGID—HOW
DOES IT REACT TO THE WINDS OF
PUBLIC OPINION?
She bends.
103
DALI, WHAT MAKES YOU TICK?
105
107
DALI, WHAT DO YOU SEE WHEN YOU
LOOK AT MONA LISA?
109
A paragon of beauty.
in
DO YOU THINK THAT A PAINTER OF
YOUR STYLE BELONGS IN OUR
ATOMIC ERA?
Certainly. I personally indulge in atomic
explosions.
115
I HAVE A HUNCH I HAVE DISCOVERED
YOUR SECRET, SALVADOR. ARE YOU
CRAZY?
Me crazy / I am certainly saner than the person
who bought this book.
119
POSTFACE
by Philippe Halsman
How it started.
THERE WERE TIMES when deeds were less important than whiskers.
Remember Barbarossa? Everybody knows about his beard, but only his-
torians know about his achievement. With the death of Kaiser Wilhelm,
Hitler and Stalin, with Chaplin’s withdrawal from the screen, the era of
great mustaches seemed to have come to en end. A desolate, whiskerless
vacuum followed.
But when, last November, I saw that Dali’s mustache had suddenly
reached his eyebrows, 1 realized that Dali had stepped into this vacuum.
Tliis great painter had become the great mustache of our times.
As a photographer I saw my duty. 1 switched on my lights and for three
hours I photographed the play and interplay of his mustache. Like two
worms, its two branches could twist and turn in any direction. So could
the conversation of its owner:
“Many American tourists visited me this summer in Spain. Did they
want to see my paintings? Not at all! They were only interested in my
mustache. The public does not need great painting. What it needs is a
better mustache.”
A few days later I went to see my publisher, Dick Simon, about a
recently published fairy tale of mine. Noticing a large envelope under my
arm, he inquired about its content.
“I have an appointment with a Life editor,” I said, “I promised to
show him a few hair-raising photographs.”
Dick looked at my pictures, laughed, lingered over the words “Dab’s
Mustache” scribbled on the envelope and remarked:
“Why don’t you make it into a book?”
Phe idea struck me as preposterous. But after all 1 had had the identical
reaction when Dick first suggested making a book of my pictures of
Fernandel. Subsequently, the book, The Frenchman, fathered scores of
imitations and ... I am still driving a convertible which, in fond financial
memory, 1 call Fernandel.
And here at last was the opportunity to realize one of my ambitious
120
dreams—to create a work of major preposterousness. I said: “I will try
this idea on Dali."
I approached the great surrealist cautiously:
‘"Books have been written about you and other painters. But there is no
hook about a part of their personality, as, for instance, Raphael’s nose or
Picasso’s foot. What a tribute to your talent. Dab! A book to appear—
dedicated not to the whole but only to a small part of you!’’
The immensity of the tribute visibly touched Dab. I thought it only
fair to warn him: “It is a purely idealistic venture. 1 can hardly imagine
anybody buying such a book.”
“Nobody realizes the commercial possibilities of my mustache,” said
Dab. “Only yesterday a TV network offered me $500 for the right to tele¬
vise it for 10 minutes.”
How we did it.
We HAl) TO create new pictures, and months of experiments and hard work
followed. It was a true collaboration. Some of the picture ideas were
Dab’s; for instance, the mobile, the Mother’s Day, the graph. Some of
them originated with me, like, for example, the inner conflicts, the ugli¬
ness. the Swiss cheese. But the majority were born of the intercourse of
our minds. The captions were fathered similarly.
Dali gave evidence of an admirable cynicism and an amazing objec¬
tivity. 1 asked him: “How will you answer the question ‘Why do you
paint:
Dab said: “I will answer: ‘Because 1 love art,’ but my mustache will
make a dollar sign.”
Later he scrutinized the finished picture and remarked with glowing
contentment, “I have the expression of a little rat. It is perfect.”
Dali also showed surprising patience and a capacity for suffering. The
photograph of Dali through Swiss cheese presented unexpected difficulties.
The cheese affected Dab’s waxed mustache in a mysterious way. The mus¬
tache lost its spring and drooped. Two assistants had to pull it through the
cheese holes and hold it up, while Dali tried vainly to peer with his eye
through a third hole. It took over an hour to get the picture. Dab’s face
was covered with a mixture of sweat and Swiss cheese. Half of his eyelashes
and a third of his mustache were lost, imbedded in the cheese. But he did
not complain.
Another difficult picture was the one with the fly. It was difficult because
it was winter when Dali expressed a desire to he photographed with flies
clinging to his mustache. There seemed to be no flies left in New York.
Finally I found half a dozen dead ones sticking to dusty cobwebs in the sta-
bles at the end of our street. I glued them on Dab s mustache and took sev¬
eral photographs. But Dab is an ambitious man. He did not want small
ordinary fbes on his mustache, but a big fat manure fly. My entire family
was alerted and put on the lookout.
Spring advanced, the sun’s rays grew warmer and one day my loyal
wife, Yvonne, noticed some big fbes sitting on vegetables displayed in front
of a vegetable market. She went inside, bought some carrots, made friends
with the owner and asked him for permission to catch a few fbes.
“Go ahead, lady!” said the owner generously.
“Do you have a fly swatter?” asked Yvonne.
Since he had none, she ran to the nearest Five-and-Ten to buy one. In
the meantime the store owner went to lunch and was replaced by his
partner. When the partner looked through the store window he saw a
strange woman with a brand new fly swatter, socking flies on Ins vegetable
stand. Trembling with rage, he ran out, grabbed my wife by the shoulders
and shouted:
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
Yvonne stammering, started to explain that she needed the fbes to paste
to the mustache of a very famous painter, but the vegetable man inter¬
rupted her with shouts that she belonged in some asylum. A crowd gath¬
ered. Yvonne had some difficulty escaping.
She was still weeping when I found her at home. I tried to calm her but
she sobbed:
“They were the most beautiful flies I have ever seen.”
It took us two weeks before we found another manure fly.
The photograph which required the most effort was inspired by the most
famous of Dab’s paintings, his picture of the bmp watches. The problem
was to substitute Dab’s face in place of a watch. I photographed Dab with
his mouth open, made a glass diapositive, melted its emulsion, distorted,
rephotographed, melted again, distorted again, till I finally had Dab’s face
melting in the most atrocious way. Together with unsuccessful experi¬
menting it took over a hundred working hours. Only my stubborn ambi¬
tion to prove that any distortion—so easy in painting and in pobtics—was
also achievable by purely photographic means, kept me from giving up.
Now Dab’s bmp face appears so much an integral part of the painting that
when I submitted this picture to a photographic annual, its editor rejected
it for not being a photograph.
122
One day, Dali confided that he always wanted to look like Mona Lisa.
I smiled, because I never felt a remotely similar desire. Dah hisisted, and
I was moved by the deep emotion in his voice.
“,411 right,” I said, “I will put your mustache on Mona Lisa’s face.”
“That is the trouble,” exclaimed Dah. “Marcel Duchamp has already
created a scandal by drawing a mustache on Mona Lisa. It would be
plagiarism.”
“But I will also give her your piercing eyes and your big hands. She
will be counting money.”
Dab’s face lit up. One of his dreams was coming true.
Our obsession continued. Ideas swamped us. We had the feeling that
we could fill tomes with mustaches. I found myself refusing assignments
to have more time for my work on Dab’s mustache. The mustaehomania
spread to my children.
“Daddy,” asked my youngest daughter, “Couldn’t you photograph Dah
eating his mustache, as if it were noodles?”
Our publisher put a stop to all this. We had passed our deadline by
three weeks.
Is it only a joke?
A YOUNG AND—in spite of her normal IQ—very bright looking actress
told me, after glancing through the pictures of this hook:
“Some of them give me an icky feeling. I cannot look at them without
wincing.”
Then she added: “Why do you seem so happy about it?”
“Because it proves that they have some of the ipiahty a surrealist’s
work should have.”
“I don’t understand,” she said timidly.
“Most people don’t understand surrealism. They confuse it with sym¬
bolism or they think it is an art style, like, for instance, impressionism.
But surrealism is not a style, it is a method of creating. There cannot he
such a thing as an impressionistic bathtub. But Dab’s famous fur-lined
bathtub in Bonwit Teller’s window was a surrealistic object par excellence.
When a surrealist creates, he is not controlled by his intellect or any
moral standards; he creates with his subconscious mind. A Raphael
sought harmony; a surrealist tries to disturb. His work is not directed at
our reason; it aims straight at our subconscious. If you wince, it is proof
positive that he has scored a direct hit on your libido. ”
I looked with curiosity at the picture which had so deeply disturbed
123
the young actress. She blushed and closed the book. Then she said:
“I’ll ask you a question you probably have heard many times. Is Dali
crazy:
“Dali is a surrealist,” 1 answered. “The most surrealistic of all his
creations, however, is himself. I don’t know which made him more
famous: his paintings or the legend he helped to create.”
“Exactly what I thought—crazy like a fox!”
“A very unhappy simile! As if being a fox were a protection against
being crazy. No, Dali is as sincere as a child who will sometimes hurt
himself to make his make-believe more real. Take, for instance, this book.
In the eyes of the so-called serious people, it might hurt Dali’s prestige
as one of the world’s foremost painters.”
“But is he aware of it?”
“Of course!” I said. “But what could he do? He owed the book to his
mustache. You know, the two are deeply attached to each other.”
The young actress sighed, for reasons known only to herself, and asked:
“But you, Philippe—what do you think about Dab s mustache?”
1 thought of the many, many hours spent in the darkroom, at work on
this mustache, and sighed too.
“For me,” I said, “Dali’s mustache has become a symbol. Andre Gide
ended his Nourritures terrestres with the words:
“ \ . et cree de toi, impatiemment ou patiemment, ah! le plus irrem-
plaqable des etres. ’ ”*
1’he great lesson of Dali's mustache is that we all must patiently or
impatiently glow within us something that makes us different, unique
and irreplaceable.”
“Oh no!” exclaimed the actress. “A mustache with a message! How
much more preposterous can one get?”
“You really mean it?” I asked happily, “Or are you just trying to
flatter us?”
. . and create out of yourself, impatiently or patiently, ah! the most irreplaceable
of beings. ’
124
PUBLISHER'S NOTES
ON HOW SOME OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS WERE MADE
(OF INTEREST CHIEFLY TO PHOTOGRAPHERS)
Cover Picture—This photograph was made some years before the rest of
the pictures in the book—as is quite evident from the Kaiseresque
aspects of Dali’s mustache at the time. Halsman had made a three-
quarter view of Dali's face, as can he readily discovered by covering
the left half of the photograph. In the printing, Halsman reversed the
negative for one-half the exposure. Don’t ask us how he covered up
the other half. Dali fell so much in love with this picture that when the
mayor of Malaga, Spain, asked him for permission to build a statue of
him. Dali gave this picture as the model to he used. A three-dimensional
effigy was built, 30 feet high, showing his face on both sides. It was
erected in the public square, and then burned on March 10th, 1054,
in honor of St. Macarius.
PAGE 15—(“In order to pass unobserved”) This was made as a regular
portrait. Before printing the negative, Halsman painted out the face
with New Coccine, a red chemical which, in printing, can be made to
obliterate all detail on the negative.
PACE 19-—(“Like two erect sentries my mustache defends the entrance
to my real self’) This is a blow-up of a relatively small portion of the
negative. This might be the best place to note that for most of the pic¬
tures in the book, Dali made up his mustache with Hungarian
Mustache Wax. Halsman adds that it is obtainable in the United States
at two stores, whose names and addresses we do not know.
PAGE 31—(“No problem is too knotty for me”) Halsman insists that Dali
himself tied the bow. Again a tribute to the versatility of Dali and the
Hungarian Mustache Wax. The finished print was pasted on Dali's
personal passport. Both Dali and Halsman disclaim having anything
to do with the question mark over the subject’s head, which was evi¬
dently filled in hy a passport clerk who became confused in the pres¬
ence of a great artist.
PAGE 35—(“No analyst could ever take me lying down”) Since Halsman
has no analyst’s couch in his studio, poor Dali had to lie on the floor.
Halsman lowered his Kolleiflcx, focused on Dali’s nostrils, and set off
the Strobe lights.
125
PAGE 39—(“A gentlemen never discusses figures'1) A photograph
showing the superb cooperation between Hungarian Mustache Wax,
a wink, a well-coordinated series of Strobe lights and a dash of
Surrealism.
PAGE 43—("Because I love art"1) On the finished print, Halsman laid two
spotting brushes over Dab’s mustache, and surrounded the picture
with silver coins. Then he re-photographed the print.
PAGE 47—(No caption) This is double printing. First, Halsman made a
negative of some graph paper, which he printed in his enlarger. Then,
on the same piece of paper, he made a very weak exposure of Dali’s
face, giving some extra exposure time to the mustache alone. In case
this puzzles you, consult one of your amateur photographer friends.
PAGE 55—(“No, I am completely mobile11) Watch this closely. Since Dab’s
mustache is touching his right eyebrow, Halsman cut the mustache and
eyebrow out of the print. Then he cut out the eye, attaching it with thin
wire to the eyebrow. Then he himg this mobile from another wire in his
study. (There must he some easier way of making a living.)
PAGE 59—(“Disorder”) A closeup of Dab's mustache, uncombed and
minus the Hunagarian Mustache Wax.
PAGE 63—(“Harmony”) Showing what happend when the Hungarian
Mustache Wax was re-applied. (Special research note: The ancient
Greeks considered the logarithmic spiral as a symbol of perfect har¬
mony.)
PAGE 71—(“Well, I have a few minor inner conflicts”) Again, your
attention please:
When Halsman took Picture No. 7, he made a number of exposures.
He double-printed two, in order to show one Dab mustache fencing
with another Dab mustache. (Are you still with us?) Then he cut out
the mouth of another photograph of Dab, being careful to leave a few
teeth on both the upper and lower jaws. In order to give depth, the
fencing-mustache print was placed about a foot behind the photo¬
graph of the now mouthless Dali print, with the camera focused on the
fencing mustaches. (It s things like these which have delayed publica¬
tion of this book for months.)
PAGE 79—(“Providing the right honey for the right fly at the right time
and place”) This is the only photograph in which Dab's mustache is
not 100% genuine. By the time the weather grew warm enough for
Mrs. Halsman to capture and bring home the large manure fly, Dab
126
had left for Europe. Dali, however, had heen forehanded enough to
construct a hair replica of his mustache, and applied his beloved
Hungarian Mustache Wax to it. Halsman glued the fly to the Ersatz
mustache, and placed it in front of part of the first portrait in this
hook. Then he and Mrs. Halsman spent hours pouring the right
amount of honey at the right time on the right part of the mustache and
shooting the picture when the drop of honey formed at the right place.
PAGE 83—(“I’m always fisliing for compliments”) We wondered about
this one too. It was readily explained by the photographer: There was
no weight attached to the end of the string.
PAGE 91—(“Only one thing: Swiss cheese”) Note to non-cheese eaters: If
you try this, use imported Swiss cheese. The holes in the domestic
variety are too small.
PAGE 99—(“From the point of view of hair on the face, there has been
a steady decline”) Marx, Engels, anil Lenin were photographed out of
an old French encyclopedia. The head of Stalin comes from Margaret
Bourke-White’s hook. Shooting the Russian War, and is reproduced
with her permission. Malenkov was more expensive. His photograph
was purchased from a photographic agency. Each of the pictures were
printed approximately the same size, pasted on white circular card-
hoard, and hung from Dali’s mustache. A spotlight w as focused on the
Communist leaders, leaving Dali’s chin and forehead in comparative
gloom.
PAGE 103—(“She bends”) Made by de-waxing, a few brush strokes,
and a General Electric fan.
PAGE 107—(“My hairspring, of course”) After having photographed tens
of thousands of faces. Halsman became convinced that the textbooks
are right: each face is subdivided into three parts—forehead, nose
and chin. Problem? How to place the axis of the mustache smack in
the middle. This was solved by an exercise in progressive photo¬
graphic distortions. First Halsman enlarged a photograph of Dab’s
face by distorting the image in the enlarger. This did not produce
enough distortion, and he next photographed this enlargement at a
distorted angle. This second negative w as then further distorted in the
enlarger. This whole process was repeated once more—with the result¬
ant appearance of Dali’s circular face that we see looking down from
above. The watch numerals were photographed from an old watch
dial, which again had to be distorted to fit Dali’s distorted face.
Question: Is it 22'h minutes to three or quarter past seven?
127
PAGE 111—(“A paragon of beauty”) And here is an exercise in semi¬
vandalism. It’s Mona Lisa all right, hut how did those eyes, that
mustache, those strange hands, and those coins creep in? Answer:
First, Halsman asked Dali to pose, looking like Mona Lisa. From
the finished enlargement, he cut out the eyes and mustache, and
pasted them on a reproduction of Leonardo’s immortal masterpiece.
Problem: The Mona Lisa painting had some perpendicular cracks.
With a fine pen, Halsman drew in cracks to correspond. (What do we
mean—semi-vandalism?) Then about those hairy hands—and here we
go into a real hy-path. One of the photographs that we unfortunately
were unable to include in this hook, was a portrait of the Spanish
maestro with a $10,000 bill hung on each side of his mustache. Two
$10,000 bills were borrowed from the Bankers Trust Company and
sent to Halsman with an armed guard who had his revolver exposed in
a holster. He scared the Halsman household half to death. The two
$10,000 hills were photographed in Dali's hands for the Mona Lisa
picture. When the proofs were ready, they were sent for O.K. to the
Secret Service Branch of the Treasury Department. No soap, they
said—their point being that even though the large hills were discreetly
folded to prevent photographic forgery, nevertheless the Federal law
was discouragingly explicit. Too had, for we rather liked the caption
for the $10,000 hills draped on Dali’s mustache. It was to have been:
“Is your mustache insured?” By the time refusal came from the
Treasury Department, Dali had gone abroad. In the final photograph,
substitution was made of silver coins, and of Halsman’s instead of
Dali’s hands [Publisher’s note: The law has been changed and the
present edition includes the original photograph].
PAGE 115—(“Certainly. I personally indulge in atomic explosions”) In
order to take this picture of Dali under water, Halsman ordered a spe¬
cial aquarium, 1 foot deep and P/2 feet long, with a transparent
bottom. Dali took off his tie, and looked at the water-filled aquarium,
with the expression of a man being led to execution. Halsman won¬
dered whether Dali would be able to open his eyes under water. He
asked Dali: “Do you swim?” “Why,” answered Dali—his voice
breaking—“Is there any danger?” Now what about that atomic-looking
explosion? This was made with milk which Dali had thoughtfully con¬
cealed in his mouth and squirted out when the Strobe lights went off.
PAGE 119—Halsman and Dali were discussing McCarthyism when the
Strobe light accidentally went off.
1255
Philippe Halsman’s memorable photo¬
graphs of the leading statesmen, scientists,
entertainers and artists ofour 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 photogra¬
phers 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.
Flammarion
26, rue Racine
75006 Paris
Printed in Spain
WARNING!
THIS BOOK IS
PREPOSTEROUS
FA 3560
ISBN : 2-08013-560-0
9 782080 135605
9782080135605 22
Printed in Spain 09/17/2019 16:44-2
