The Persistence of Memory is one of the most famous paintings by artist Salvador Dalí. It was painted in 1931 and first exhibited the following year. It is a well known work of surrealism, which introduced the image of the soft melting pocket watch. The painting has also been known under the title Soft Watches. It measures 24 x 33 cm.

Dalí began the painting with a landscape of the seashore of Catalonia at Cape Creus (one of his favorite themes). Dalí was moved to include the famous melting-clock imagery after a vision he had following a snack of Camembert cheese - the clocks, therefore, have the texture of the soft cheese. The painting has three soft watches (one of which has a fly on it), as well as a fourth watch being devoured by ants. This is widely seen as a commentary that time is less solid than people usually assume.

In the center of the picture, under one of the watches, is a distorted human face in profile. This face also appeared in Dalí's earlier work "The Great Masturbator".

The painting was first publicly exhibited in New York City in 1932, and Dalí sold it for $250 . The Persistence of Memory is on display today in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

The painting soon became the best known of Dalí's works, and has frequently been reproduced in postcards, posters, and other media. By 1938 it was so much a part of popular culture that versions of Persistence appear in the background of the animated cartoon Porky in Wackyland.

Dalí returned to the theme of this painting with the variation The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1954), showing his earlier famous work falling apart into component parts and a series of rectangles; this work is now in the Dalí Museum in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Dalí also produced various lithographs and sculptures on the theme of soft watches late in his career.

External links

• Link to a copy of the painting (http://www.printsplus.com/catalog/images/museum/persistence-of-memory-lg.jpg)

it:La persistenza della memoria (Salvador Dalí)