The Persistence of Memory

Dalí claimed to have conceived the image in a flash of inspiration while eating a particularly ripe Camembert cheese at home in Cadaqués one afternoon in 1931. His wife Gala had gone to the cinema with friends; Dalí stayed home, and in approximately two hours completed the small canvas. He reportedly woke Gala when she returned and asked what she thought: "In five years," she said, "no one will be able to forget it."

The painting was sold immediately to Julien Levy, an American gallerist who championed Surrealism in New York. It was exhibited in Levy's gallery in 1932, causing immediate sensation. MoMA acquired it in 1934, and it has been in the collection ever since — making it one of the earliest Surrealist works to enter a major American museum.