Dali's surreal world is another major coup for gallery

Last year, the small independent gallery in Meanwood, which continues to fly the flag for the visual arts in Leeds, staged exhibitions featuring the work of David Hockney, Joash Woodrow, Henri Matisse, Elisabeth Frink and Marc Chagall.

Tomorrow's exhibition will feature 50 etchings, drypoints and lithographs by Salvador Dali. Most of the works for sale are hand signed in pencil.

The gallery, run by brother and sister Simon Brown and Leah Hester-Brown, was previously owned by their father. In recent years, its reputation has grown with each new exhibition.

This latest impressive addition gives much reason to shout in praise of the little art gallery, according to former MEP Michael McGowan

The director of Leeds City Credit Union, and former city councillor, Mr McGowan is a fan of the gallery.

"When I was on the council, my constituency was University Ward, which

Artco lies just on the edge of," he says.

"I have known the gallery for a number of years, was introduced to Simon and his sister by the artist Christopher Wood and I knew their father as well.

"I'm not a big art collector, I've got a sketch of Christopher's that I bought for a few bob, but I do know that what the gallery is doing, by bringing art by artists of this kind of calibre, really does make a big difference to the city.

"As a city we are incredibly strong in performance arts, with companies like Opera North, Northern Ballet Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse.

"Visual arts are not given the kind of recognition in Leeds that they should have and having a gallery like Artco, bringing work like Dali's, is hugely important and a testament to their determination."

Born in 1904, Dali was the best-known surrealist painter of the 20th century due to a combination of technical accomplishment, haunting imagery and thirst for publicity.

In 1921, Dali won acceptance to the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. During his student years, he discovered what would become one of the most important influences on his painting style, Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams.

Dali's personal take on Freud's theory of the subconscious became the basis of his so-called "Paranoic-critical method" of painting, by which Dali discovered or hallucinated images of his own subconscious desires and painted the results. Dali called the paintings of this period "hand-painted dream photographs".

Salvador Dali: Artco, Meanwood Road, Leeds, to March 20.