Sublime

The last canvas I saw him working on in Port Lligat was a painting of a decaying donkey, a scene lifted from Un Chien Andalou, the surrealist film he had made with Luis Buñuel in 1929. Every obsession returned. 'I am the concentric eccentric,' he said and I thought of ripples growing smaller as they vanish to nothing. He was shrinking, shrivelling,

modesty is not my specialty.

Not a peseta in cash remained in Dalí's bank accounts. But there were three hundred million dollars in works of art

One day, in the summer of 1970, I was standing naked in the studio, the light behind me, the sun glinting on the waves in Port Lligat. Dalí was pleased with the study on the easel and exasperated with the roughs that littered the floor. He called Arturo. 'Get rid of this rubbish. Burn it,' he instructed and, as we left the room, the faithful servan

Dalí's favourite metaphor: 'I am a prostitute. I don't want to know the client. I just want my money. I love money. Lots of money. My seed rises into the glorious eruption of a majestic orgasm when I picture the Divine Dalí rolling in a bed of money.'

Dalí was wearing a dark blue velvet suit, a ruffled shirt, a medal on a ribbon and a colourful waistcoat decorated with a fine tracery of stains like coral reefs on the Caribbean Sea.