The Persistence of Memory
Salvador Dalí · 1931
Oil on canvas
Quick answer
The Persistence of Memory (1931) by Salvador Dalí is in Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City. The Persistence of Memory is an oil painting by Spanish Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, created in 1931. It depicts a dreamlike landscape featuring multiple melting pocket watches draped over various objects, including a distorted human-like figure, a table edge, and a tree branch. The painting is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. It is one of the most recognisable images of Surrealism and 20th-century art. World Museum Guide explains what you're looking at and how to see it.
Frequently asked questions
What do the melting watches mean in The Persistence of Memory?
The melting watches represent the fluidity and unreliability of time, particularly as experienced in dreams, where the rigid structure of clock-time dissolves. Dalí was influenced by Freud's theories of the unconscious and the way time operates differently in the dream-state. He also may have been responding to Einstein's theory of relativity and its challenge to absolute time — though Dalí never explicitly confirmed this.
Where is The Persistence of Memory?
The Persistence of Memory is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. It is on display in Gallery 506 on the fifth floor. MoMA is at 11 West 53rd Street, Midtown Manhattan.
How big is The Persistence of Memory?
The painting is only 24 × 33 cm (9.5 × 13 inches) — about the size of a piece of A4 paper. Most visitors are surprised by how small it is given its visual power and fame. Dalí worked at this small scale deliberately, as he believed intimate scale enhanced the dreamlike intensity of the image.
Why did Dalí paint melting watches?
Dalí claimed the idea came to him while looking at a piece of ripe Camembert cheese after lunch at his home in Cadaqués in 1931. The "soft" quality of the cheese prompted the image of soft, melting watches. The wider context is Surrealism's interest in the illogical imagery of dreams and the unconscious mind — and Dalí's specific interest in depicting impossible physical states with photographic realism.
What style is The Persistence of Memory?
The Persistence of Memory is a Surrealist painting. Surrealism, founded in Paris in the 1920s by poet André Breton, sought to access the imagery of the unconscious mind through automatic writing, dreamlike juxtapositions, and irrational content. Dalí's distinctive contribution was his "paranoiac-critical method" — a self-induced delusional state he used to generate impossible imagery, rendered in meticulous academic realism.