The Persistence of Memory - wikipedia The Persistence of Memory This article is about the painting by Salvador Dalí. For other uses, see The Persistence of Memory ( disambiguation ). The Persistence of Memory Artist Salvador Dalí Year 1931 ( 1931 ) Medium Oil on canvas 24 cm × 33 cm ( 9.5 in × 13 in ) Location Museum of Modern Art, New York City Owner Museum of Modern Art The Persistence of Memory ( Catalan : La persistència de la memòria ) is a 1931 painting by artist Salvador Dalí, and is one of his most recognizable works. First shown at the Julien Levy Gallery in 1932, since 1934 the painting has been in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art ( MoMA ) in New York City, which received it from an anonymous donor. It is widely recognized and frequently referenced in popular culture, and sometimes referred to by more descriptive ( though incorrect ) titles, such as ' Melting Clocks ', ' The Soft Watches ' or ' The Melting Watches '. Contents 1 Description 2 Versions 3 See also 4 References 5 External links Description The well - known surrealist piece introduced the image of the soft melting pocket watch. It epitomizes Dalí 's theory of `` softness '' and `` hardness '', which was central to his thinking at the time. As Dawn Adès wrote, `` The soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, a Surrealist meditation on the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order ''. This interpretation suggests that Dalí was incorporating an understanding of the world introduced by Albert Einstein 's theory of special relativity. Asked by Ilya Prigogine whether this was in fact the case, Dalí replied that the soft watches were not inspired by the theory of relativity, but by the surrealist perception of a Camembert melting in the sun. External video Smarthistory - Dali 's The Persistence of Memory Salvador Dalí. The Persistence of Memory. 1931 It is possible to recognize a human figure in the middle of the composition, in the strange `` monster '' ( with a lot of texture near its face, and lots of contrast and tone in the picture ) that Dalí used in several contemporary pieces to represent himself -- the abstract form becoming something of a self - portrait, reappearing frequently in his work. The figure can be read as a `` fading '' creature, one that often appears in dreams where the dreamer can not pinpoint the creature 's exact form and composition. One can observe that the creature has one closed eye with several eyelashes, suggesting that the creature is also in a dream state. The iconography may refer to a dream that Dalí himself had experienced, and the clocks may symbolize the passing of time as one experiences it in sleep or the persistence of time in the eyes of the dreamer. The orange clock at the bottom left of the painting is covered in ants. Dalí often used ants in his paintings as a symbol of decay. The Persistence of Memory employs `` the exactitude of realist painting techniques '' to depict imagery more likely to be found in dreams than in waking consciousness. The craggy rocks to the right represent a tip of Cap de Creus peninsula in north - eastern Catalonia. Many of Dalí 's paintings were inspired by the landscapes of his life in Catalonia. The strange and foreboding shadow in the foreground of this painting is a reference to Mount Pani. Versions The Shanghai copy of the sculpture Nobility of Time Dalí returned to the theme of this painting with the variation The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory ( 1954 ), showing his earlier famous work systematically fragmenting into smaller component elements, and a series of rectangular blocks which reveal further imagery through the gaps between them, implying something beneath the surface of the original work ; this work is now in the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, while the original Persistence of Memory remains at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Dalí also produced various lithographs and sculptures on the theme of soft watches late in his career. Some of these sculptures are the Persistence of Memory, the Nobility of Time, the Profile of Time, and the Three Dancing Watches. See also Entropy ( arrow of time ) Apparatus and Hand References Jump up ^ Staff editor ( 28 January 1989 ). `` Dali, The Flamboyant Surrealist ''. The Vindicator. Retrieved 20 June 2011. The death of Salvador Dali evokes the image of his most famous painting, Persistence of Memory. CS1 maint : Extra text : authors list ( link ) Jump up ^ Bradbury, Kirsten ( 1999 ). Essential Dalí. ; Dempsey Parr. ISBN 978 - 1 - 84084 - 509 - 9. It includes the first appearance of what is perhaps his most enduring image : the ' soft watch '. Jump up ^ Ades, Dawn. Dalí. Thames and Hudson, 1982. Jump up ^ Salvador Dali ( 2008 ). The Dali Dimension : Decoding the Mind of a Genius ( DVD ). Media 3.14 - TVC - FGSD - IRL - AVRO. Surprisingly, Dalí said that his soft watches were not inspired by the theory of relativity, but by the surrealist perception of a Camembert cheese melting in the sun. The painter insisted on this explanation in his reply letter to Prigogine, who took it as Dalí 's reaction to Einstein 's coldly mathematical theory. Jump up ^ `` Dali 's The Persistence of Memory ''. Smarthistory at Khan Academy. Retrieved December 31, 2012. Jump up ^ `` Salvador Dalí. The Persistence of Memory. 1931 ''. MoMa. Retrieved December 31, 2012. Jump up ^ `` Danilian symbolism I Salvador Dalí I Espace Dalí ''. daliparis.com. Retrieved 4 August 2015. Jump up ^ `` MoMA I Salvador Dalí. The Persistence of Memory ''. moma.org. Museum of Modern Art ( New York ). Retrieved 4 August 2015. Jump up ^ `` Dali 's dream environments were represented through the exactitude of realist painting techniques, like those found in his Persistence of Memory ( 1931 ). '' Surrealism and Architecture, by Thomas Mical ; Psychology Press, 2005 Jump up ^ Salvador Dali. Surreal years. Art, paintings, and works. Commentary on 40 + works of art by Salvador Dalí. Jump up ^ Dalis Sculpture Editions Archived July 8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. External links The Persistence of Memory on Authentic Society The Persistence of Memory in the MoMA Online Collection `` Keep your eyes wide shut '' by Kelly Grovier in The Observer The mapping cylinder from the Fomenko et al. book Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg FL US Salvador Dalí List of works Paintings Landscape Near Figueras ( 1910 ) Vilabertran ( 1913 ) Cabaret Scene ( 1922 ) Portrait of my father ( 1925 ) The Basket of Bread ( 1926 ) Apparatus and Hand ( 1927 ) The Lugubrious Game ( 1929 ) The First Days of Spring ( 1929 ) The Accommodations of Desire ( 1929 ) The Great Masturbator ( 1929 ) The Persistence of Memory ( 1931 ) The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table ( 1934 ) Morphological Echo ( 1934 -- 36 ) Soft Construction with Boiled Beans ( Premonition of Civil War ) ( 1936 ) The Burning Giraffe ( 1937 ) Metamorphosis of Narcissus ( 1937 ) Swans Reflecting Elephants ( 1937 ) Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach ( 1938 ) Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time ( 1939 ) The Face of War ( 1940 ) Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire ( 1940 ) Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man ( 1943 ) Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening ( 1944 ) Basket of Bread ( 1945 ) The Apotheosis of Homer ( 1945 ) The Temptation of St. Anthony ( 1946 ) The Elephants ( 1948 ) Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio ( 1949 ) Leda Atomica ( 1949 ) The Madonna of Port Lligat ( 1949 ) A Logician Devil ( 1951 ) Christ of Saint John of the Cross ( 1951 ) Galatea of the Spheres ( 1952 ) The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory ( 1952 -- 54 ) The Colossus of Rhodes ( 1954 ) Crucifixion ( Corpus Hypercubus ) ( 1954 ) Young Virgin Auto - Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity ( 1954 ) The Sacrament of the Last Supper ( 1955 ) Living Still Life ( 1956 ) The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus ( 1958 -- 59 ) The Ecumenical Council ( 1959 -- 60 ) Galacidalacidesoxyribonucleicacid ( 1963 ) La Gare de Perpignan ( 1965 ) Tuna Fishing ( 1966 -- 67 ) The Hallucinogenic Toreador ( 1968 -- 70 ) La Toile Daligram ( 1972 ) Lincoln in Dalivision ( 1977 ) The Swallow 's Tail ( 1983 ) Other artworks Lobster Telephone ( 1936 ) Mae West Lips Sofa ( 1937 ) Rainy Taxi ( 1938 ) Writings Giraffes on Horseback Salad ( 1937 ) The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí ( 1942 ) Être Dieu ( 1985 ) Films Un Chien Andalou ( 1929 ) L'Age d'Or ( 1930 ) Spellbound ( 1945, dream sequence ) Destino ( 1946, completed 2003 ) Museums Castle of Púbol Dalí Theatre and Museum Espace Dalí Salvador Dalí Museum Dalí Universe Related Paranoiac - critical method Salvador Dalí and dance Laberinto Chupa Chups Mariana Pineda Gala Dalí 2919 Dali ( asteroid ) Dali crater Salvador Dalí Desert Salvador Dalí ( film ) The Death of Salvador Dali ( film ) `` Salvador Dalí '' ( song ) Little Ashes Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Persistence_of_Memory&oldid=825482367 '' Categories : Paintings by Salvador Dalí Surrealist paintings 1931 paintings Paintings of the Museum of Modern Art ( New York ) Hidden categories : CS1 maint : Extra text : authors list Webarchive template wayback links Articles containing Catalan - language text Articles with specifically marked weasel - worded phrases from June 2017 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Afrikaans Azərbaycanca Беларуская Català Čeština Cymraeg Dansk Deutsch Ελληνικά Español فارسی Français 한국어 Հայերեն Hrvatski Italiano עברית ქართული Latviešu Македонски മലയാളം Nederlands 日本 語 Oʻzbekcha / ўзбекча ਪੰਜਾਬੀ Polski Português Română Русский Simple English Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska தமிழ் Türkçe Українська Tiếng Việt 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 13 February 2018, at 17 : 18. 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Question: when did salvador dali paint the persistence of memory
Answer: 1931