Growing up with Dali

SALVADOR Dali has been painted by the media - especially in the US - as an eccentric artist whose persona was as interesting as his art, if not more so. But he was in fact extremely shy, and putting on that eccentric front seemed to be his way of dealing with strangers, feels Christine Argillet. And she should know, as she practically spent every summer staying opposite Dali's house, from the time she was five years old to her late teens, because of her father's work with Dali.

"He was perfectly normal with people he was familiar with, and he was friends with everyone - from the children to the fisherman, or old ladies who crocheted their lace in the village of Cadaques, in Spain. In fact, what impressed me was that he had no airs whatsoever, and he was constantly seeking everyone's opinions and views of his art," shares Ms Argillet. Her father, Pierre Argillet, was an avid collector of Futurist, Dadaist and Surrealist works in the early 20th century.

But it was with Dali that he developed a long collaboration. As Dali's publisher, they produced nearly 200 etchings over a 30-year period. Their collaboration ended in 1974 when the artist ceased to work with copper plate etchings in favour of photography-based lithographs because of how they affected his vision, but they would remain friends until Dali's death in 1989.