Which 1938 Salvador Dalí artwork combines a telephone receiver with a lobster?

Salvador Dalí’s 1938 artwork Lobster Telephone combines a working telephone receiver with a lobster placed on top.

Dalí created the object by joining two everyday things that normally have no connection. Surrealist artists often used such unexpected combinations to disrupt ordinary perception and encourage associations driven by dreams, desire or coincidence. The lobster’s organic form contrasts with the telephone’s manufactured design, making the familiar device appear comic and strange.

Lobster Telephone exists in several versions and is held in collections including the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and the Edward James Foundation at West Dean. It is sometimes confused with Dalí’s Mae West Lips Sofa, another famous object that transforms a practical item through an unusual form. Unlike that sofa, Lobster Telephone remains recognizably a telephone and is best classified as a Surrealist object or assemblage rather than a conventional sculpture made from a single material.