The Persistence of Memory

La persistencia de la memoria (1931) or The Persistence of Memory is the most famous painting by artist Salvador Dalí. The painting has also been popularly known as Soft Watches, Droopy Watches, The Persistence of Time or Melting Clocks. It has been owned by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City since 1934. It is, however, currently on display at the Salvador Dalí Museum, in St. Petersburg, Florida, (1 February–1 June 2008). The Persistence of Memory will return to Museum of Modern Art in June 2008 as part of the exhibition Dalí and Film, on view 29 June–15 September 2008. The well-known surrealistic 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. Although fundamentally part of Dalí's Freudian phase, the imagery predicts his transition to the scientific phase, which occurred after the dropping of the atomic bomb in 1945. It is possible to recognize a...