In 1989, Salvador Dali, surrealist painter and filmmaker, underwent an experimental procedure to cure the palsy he had suffered from since the beginning of the decade. Since he had been unable to paint, Dali felt he had nothing to lose. After the procedure, the control in his hands returned, and he was able to produce art again. Although many consider this period his least creative, his masterpiece Christ On The Operating Table was inspired by his own operation, and was finished just before Dali's death in 1993.