Old is Gold: Philippe Halsman (1948)

Dali Atomicus, perhaps the most iconic image that emerged from the collaboration of the eminent photographers, Philippe Halsman and artist Salvador Dalí. It legitimately took them 28 tries to pull off the jolly weightlessness of the photograph.

- Dalí Atomicus

However, the portrait of the artist inspired by his painting, Leda Atomica (1949), which appears in the composition’s right-hand corner—hanging suspended above the ground like the easel, chair, stepstool, cats, water, and Dalí himself, is the most eye-catching part of the entire masterpiece.

Before the photographer duo could settle with the idea of tossing three cats up in the air, the Spanish artist suggested that they blow up a duck using dynamite, instead. “A true photographer wants to try to capture the real essence of a human being,” Halsman once famously said. However, capturing the essence of Dalí was a complex task. Over nearly four decades, Halsman photographed the artist on many occasions, spurring the most iconic black-and-white portraits of the Surrealist.