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Whose painting is The Persistence of Memory?

artsurrealism

Quick Answer

Salvador Dalí, the Spanish surrealist, who painted its famous melting clocks in 1931.

The Full Story

The Persistence of Memory was painted by Salvador Dalí in 1931 and is one of the most recognisable images of the Surrealist movement. It shows soft, melting pocket watches draped over a branch, a ledge and a strange sleeping creature, set against the cliffs of Catalonia near Dalí’s home. Dalí claimed the idea came to him after looking at a runny Camembert cheese melting in the heat. Surprisingly, the painting is small, only about 24 by 33 centimetres. It has been in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York since 1934.

Key Facts

1.The strange central figure is often read as a distorted self-portrait of Dalí.
2.Ants crawl over one of the watches, a symbol of decay Dalí used often.
3.Dalí later painted a version called The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory.

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Suggested video title for this topic:

"Melting clocks and Camembert — decoding Dalí’s most famous painting"

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